Only six women make it to Delhi assembly

New Delhi, Feb 10 (IANS) The 70-member strong Delhi assembly will have just six women legislators -- all from the Aam Aadmi Party, which has won 67 of the seats.

The AAP woman power includes Rakhi Birla, who was a minister in the 49-day AAP government last year and other leaders like Parmila Tokas, an independent councilor from Munirka, who defeated BJP's Anil Kumar Sharma in R.K. Puram seat by 19,068 votes.

Birla won the Mangolpuri seat the second consecutive time by defeating Congress heavyweight Raj Kumar Chauhan with a margin of 2,269 votes.

AAP's Chandni Chowk candidate Alka Lamba, a former president of Congress-affiliated student wing National Students Union of India, defeated Bharatiya Janata Party's Suman Kumar Gupta by 18,287 votes, while Bhavna Gaur, a veteran Jan Lokpal activist, won the Palam assembly seat with the margin of 30,849 votes defeating BJP candidate Dharam Dev Solanki.

AAP's Sarita Singh won from the Rohtas Nagar assembly constituency defeating BJP candidate Jitender Mahajan by 7,874 votes and Bandana Kumari won Shalimar Bagh seat with a margin of 10,978 votes by defeating another woman candidate Rekha Gupta, contesting from BJP.

The biggest defeat in these polls was BJP's chief ministerial candidate and former IPS officer Kiran Bedi from Krishna Nagar in east Delhi. Bedi lost by 2,277 votes to AAP's S.K. Bagga in the party stronghold.

Congress candidate from Greater Kailash and President Pranab Mukherjee's daughter Sharmishtha Mukherjee and Delhi's former health and women and child development minister Kiran Walia also lost.

Walia in fact managed to garner merely 4,781 votes in the New Delhi constituency, where AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal was declared the winner with 57,213 votes.

Only 6,102 people voted for Mukherjee in Greater Kailash where AAP's Saurabh Bharadwaj got 57,589 votes.

Congress turncoat and BJP candidate from Patel Nagar Krishna Tirath also lost.

A total of 63 women contested the polls this time. Apart from the AAP's six, BJP and Congress - fielded eight and five candidates respectively.

The city state has 13.3 million voters, of whom 5.9 million are women.