House politics: Women Muslim politicians scarce

INDIA'S Muslim women politicians have been chief ministers, constituency managers, party faithfuls, party hoppers, managers of important ministries—in short, capable of every quality shown by men to be go-getters and parliamentarians.

- PARAMITA GHOSH @ New Delhi

Missing from the House (Juggernaut), a new book by journalists Rasheed Kidwai and Ambar Kumar Ghosh, however, has come up with a shocker.

Since the first general elections of 1951-52, there have been, until 2024, only 690 women MPs. Of this only 18 have been Muslim women. Out of the 18 Lok Sabhas constituted till 2025, there were five that did not have a single Muslim woman member. "Equally shocking is the fact that the number of Muslim women elected to Parliament in one tenure, never crossed a mark of four in the 543-seat Lower House of Parliament," they write in the book.