Women’s Reservation Bill: 74 women MPs in 18th Lok Sabha; BJP leads in numbers, TMC has highest ratio

New Delhi: Women constitute around 14% of the 18th Lok Sabha and 74 women MPs will be elected in the 2024 general elections, data shows.ALSO READ | Decoding demarcation: What the Center was trying to do, why the opposition rejected it and what happens nextThe women MPs are spread across 14 parties, 37 from the ruling National Democratic Alliance led by the Bharatiya Janata Party and 35 from the Congress-led India Bloc, while there is one woman MP each from the Shiromani Akali Dal Party and the YSR Congress Party, both of which are not aligned with the two major alliances.As the largest party in the House of Representatives, with 240 members, bjp The largest number of female MPs is 31, accounting for approximately 13% of the total number. Among its allies, JD(U) and LJP (Ram Vilas) have two women MPs each, while TDP and Apna Dal (Soneylal) have one woman MP each.On the other hand, the Congress party has a total of 99 members, of which 13 are women, followed by its allies Trinamool Congress (11 out of 29), Samajwadi Party (5 out of 37) and DMK (3 out of 22). The India group also includes one woman MP each from the NCP (SP), RJD and JMM.Although ranked third in absolute numbers, about 38 per cent of the Trinamool Congress’s (TMC) Lok Sabha members are women – a significant lead.This was also emphasized by West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) president Mamata Banerjee, herself a former Lok Sabha member, in her reaction to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to the nation on Saturday.ALSO READ | ‘PM Modi’s speech on women’s quota violated model code’: CPM, CPI write to Election Commission; national broadcaster’s flag used“It is extremely unfortunate that the Prime Minister has chosen to mislead the nation rather than address this issue honestly. Let me put this on record. The Trinamool Congress has always supported women for greater political representation. We have the highest proportion of women elected to Parliament and state legislatures. In the Lok Sabha, 37.9 per cent of our elected MPs are women. In the Lok Sabha, we have nominated 46 per cent of women MPs. The issue of opposition to women’s reservation has never arisen,” Banerjee, who will face assembly elections in her home state from April 23 to 29, wrote on X.ALSO READ | ‘Cowardly, hypocritical and short-tongued’: Mamata Banerjee hits back at PM Modi over women’s reservation billThe Prime Minister was speaking a day after the Women’s Reservation Bill failed to pass the House of Representatives as it was blocked by the opposition parties. In his speech, he blamed the Congress, TMC, DMK and Samajwadi Party for the bill’s failure, calling them “anti-women”.