Once again, no women representation in Nagaland's 60-member House

KOHIMA: Nagaland Assembly will remain to be a male bastion as all the five women who were contesting in the state lost, with one of them getting only 17 votes.

Women have always found it tough to survive in politics in the tribal-dominated Northeastern state. No woman has ever won an Assembly election in Nagaland since 1963 when the state came into existence.

Of the five female candidates, only Awan Konyak — National Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) candidate from Aboi constituency — put up a fight with bagging 5,131 votes. Awan, however, lost in a closely-fought contest to Naga People's Front (NPF) Eshak Konyak who won with 6,036 votes.

This is the first time so many women were contesting the election in the male-dominated political system in the state. In 2013, there were only two female candidates.

The state last year witnessed violence and bloodshed as there was a strong opposition to the government's move of having 33 per cent reservation for women in local municipal elections.

With five women in the fray, there was an expectation that the Assembly will have some female representation, but it remained futile.

The other female candidates —Wedie-U-Kronu from NDPP, Mangyanpula from NPP, Rakhila from BJP, and independent candidate Rekha Rose Dukru — were never in the reckoning. OF these four, three stood last. BJP's Rakhila from Tuensang Sadar II was the only other female candidate who still put up a fight with 2,749 votes and ended up in the third position among the four candidates.