NEW DELHI: The poll victories of a princess and a saffron clad celibate, who join a growing band of female chief ministers in India, appear to dispel the myth that women lack “winnability” in the rough and tumble world of electoral politics.

On Monday, Vasundhara Raje Scindia from the royal family of the Scindias was sworn in as chief minister of western Rajasthan state. Uma Bharti, a beads-and-saffron robe wearing “sanyasin” (celibate) took the oath of office as chief minister of sprawling central Madhya Pradesh state.

The social difference between the two women could not be starker.

The Scindias still live in palaces, one of them boasting the world’s biggest dining hall and lit up by the world’s biggest cut-glass chandeliers. Bharti, for her part, is a primary school dropout and a member of one of Hinduism’s socially deprived castes.

They join in victory Sheila Dikshit, one of India’s more popular politicians, who was re-elected chief minister of Delhi, a state of 14 million people and host to the national capital, in provincial assembly elections in four northern Indian states held on Dec 1.

Women chief ministers, including the once-glamorous, former actress Jayarman Jayalalithaa in southern Tamil Nadu and the staid home- maker Rabri Devi in eastern Bihar state, now directly rule over the destinies of a combined 300 million people in five Indian states.

These five women have made a practical demonstration of what researchers and women’s organizations have been saying all along — that given the opportunities and the tickets female candidates can win elections, with or without seats being reserved for them in the provincial assemblies and national parliament.

Pressure has been mounting on India’s major political parties to field more women in elections after repeated attempts over almost a decade to reserve 33 per cent of seats in legislatures.

Among these efforts is a constitutional amendment bill, whose passage has been systematically thwarted by vested interests — not all of it having to do with male chauvinism.

The results of the December polls, particularly in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, two of India’s most backward states, show that women candidates can draw out larger numbers of women voters and win elections for political parties — and this is bound to change the calculations of campaign managers. Especially impressive was the victory of Uma Bharti, who comes from an impoverished, peasant background but was fielded by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), best-known for its pro-Hindu, patriarchal and right-wing ideology.

Bharti’s emphasis during the election campaign on development- related issues uncharacteristically steered clear of causes dear to the BJP and her own fiery participation in the demolition of the Babri Masjid mosque at Ayodhya, which first shot her party into national prominence 10 years ago.

Dikshit, a stalwart of the Congress party, the BJP’s main rival, was re-elected because of demonstrable improvements to Delhi’s power supply and other civic amenities, which are nowadays seen as more important than ideology or religion, especially by women voters.

Explains Congress party leader, lawyer and campaigner for women’s rights Jayanti Natarajan: “Development is not merely a women’s issue but everyday issues such as availability of water do impact greatly on the lives of women.”

The Congress party is run by Sonia Gandhi, a woman on whose shoulders falls the responsibility of leading her party into next year’s general elections.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.