“I will not marry for the next five years— that is until I complete my term as the Sarpanch of the Gram Panchayat. If I get married and go to my in-laws’ place, who will look after my village? People will say the Panchayat is suffering as they elected a woman,” said 21-year-old Sukhwinder Kaur Sukhi, the newly-elected Sarpanch of Phull village in Jalandher district, Punjab.

Sukhwinder was the youngest among all women representatives who were in the Capital to attend the release of a study on Elected Woman Representatives (EWR) in Panchayati Raj Institutions initiated by the Panchayati Raj Ministry.

Elected under the SC reservation seat, Sukhwinder said her priority was to improve the educational facilities in the village, as she could not study beyond her Class XII. “Education is the key to success. I want all children in my village to have a bright future,” she said.

Sukwinder is not the only one to be part of the gender revolution sweeping the most discriminated parts of the country. A study carried out by AC Nielsen ORG MARG has cited several instances similar to Sukhwinder among the 1,039,058 EWRs.

According to the study, reservation has played a significant role as four-fifths of the EWRs were found elected from reserved seats.

While reservation facilitated the first-time entry of 83 per cent EWRs into politics, the study also found that 39 per cent women chose not to contest the polls owing to withdrawal of reservation.

... contd.