Only 12 women candidates in fray in Sikkim Assembly polls

Gangtok, Apr 5 (PTI) Though they constitute nearly 50 per cent of the voters but there are only 12 women candidates out of 146 nominees in the fray for the Sikkim Assembly and the lone Lok Sabha seat in the Himalayan state.

Sikkim has 32 Assembly seats and a lone Lok Sabha constituency. Voting for the Assembly and Lok Sabha seat will be held on April 19.

The Himalayan state has a total of 4.66 lakh voters of which 2.31 lakh are women.

In the outgoing Sikkim Legislative Assembly (SLA), there were three women MLAs – Farwanti Tamang from Melli, Rajkumari Thapa from Rangang Yanggang and Sunita Gajmer from Zoom- Salghari (SC). In the last state Assembly and Lok Sabha elections, there were 15 women candidates.

The ruling Sikkim Krantikari Morcha (SKM) has fielded four women candidates. In the 2019 elections, the party had fielded three women candidates.

The women SKM candidates include Chief Minister Prem Singh Tamang’s wife Krishna Kumar Rai. She is in the fray from Namchi-Singhithang, while the sitting MLA Rajkumari Thapa, who joined the ruling party from BJP recently has been fielded from Rangang-Yangang.

The SKM has fielded Kalawati Rai from Upper Burtuk against BJP president and sitting MLA D R Thapa, while Pamin Lepcha is contesting from Gnathang-Machong (BL) constituency. Another regional outfit, Citizen Action Party (CAP-Sikkim) has also fielded four women candidates, while BJP and the Congress have given tickets to two women candidates each.

The leading opposition party, Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF) has not fielded a single women candidate in the elections this time. The SDF had given tickets to four women candidates in the 2019 elections and two of them had won the election.

No representative of the SDF could be contacted for comments on why the party has not fielded a single women candidate this time. In the lone Lok Sabha constituency in Sikkim in which 14 candidates are in the fray, a woman Bina Rai is contesting as an independent candidate. Dil Kumari Bhandari was the last woman to represent Sikkim in Lok Sabha (1991-96).