5 May : There are 15 women among 217 contestants in poll fray from Kerala in General Elections for the Fifteenth Lok Sabha. Representation of women in the successive Lok Sabhas from Kerala State has remained between1and 2. Ms. Annie Mascarene was the first woman to represent Kerala in the Lok Sabha. She was elected to the First Lok Sabha in 1952 as an independent candidate from Trivandrum constituency.
In the Second and Third Lok Sabha there was no woman representative from Kerala. In the 1967 General Elections Ms. Suseela Gopalan from CPM got elected from the Ambalapuzha constituency for the Fourth Lok Sabha. She won elections for the Seventh and Tenth Lok Sabha also from Alleppey and Chirayinkil constituencies repectively.
In the Fifth Lok Sabha, it was Ms. K. Bhargavi of CPI who represented Kerala from Adoor constituency.
Ms. Savithri Lakshmanan from INC got elected twice i.e., for the Nineth and Tenth Lok Sabha from Mukundapuram constituency. The other woman who was elected twice for the Lok Sabha was Ms. A. K. Premajam from CPM. She was member of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Lok Sabha from Badagara constituency.
Fourteenth Lok Sabha had two women members from Kerala namely, Ms. P. Satheedevi from Badagara constituency and Ms. C.S. Sujatha from Mavelikara Constituency, both from CPM.
Participation of women contestants from Kerala in Lok Sabha elections has increased from 1 to 15. The Tenth and Fourteenth Lok Sabha had the highest representation of women from Kerala with 2 members, which is the 10% of the total strength of Kerala in Lok Sabha. Partywise, it was CPM which had the highest number of women Lok Sabha members from Kerala i.e., 7 out of 11.