Only three women make it to Delhi assembly

New Delhi: They came out in droves to vote in the Delhi elections, but only three of 69 women who contested the polls managed to make it to the state assembly. Incidentally, all are from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The Sunday results also saw formidable women candidates like former chief minister Sheila Dikshit, former state minister Kiran Walia and well known AAP candidate Shazia Ilmi lose.

While the Congress and the AAP fielded six candidates each, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had five in the fray. The Congress candidates, included former MLA Barkha Singh and youth leaders Ragini Nayak and Amrita Dhavan besides Dikshit and Walia. The BJP aspirants included former mayors Arti Mehra and Rajni Abbi. AAP`s Rakhi Birla defeated former PWD minister Raj Kumar Chauhan (Congress) from Mongolpuri while Veena Anand triumphed over Poornima Vidhyarthi (BJP) in Patel Nagar and Bandana Kumari won against Ravinder Nath Bansal, also of the BJP, in the Shamilar Bagh constituency.