Guwahati, May 8: Women stood in long queues across Assam this election. In towns, villages, tea gardens, chars and hill districts, they turned up in bigger numbers than men and helped push the state to one of its highest Assembly poll turnouts in recent years.

Ironically, when the results came in, only seven women entered the 126-member Assembly, a number that has remained unchanged from the last Assembly despite the sharp rise in female voter participation.

Women now make up nearly half of Assam’s electorate and this time recorded a turnout of around 86.5 per cent, marginally higher than men. In absolute terms too, women voters outnumbered men by nearly 1.4 lakh during polling.

Out of 722 candidates in the fray, only 59 were women and just seven managed to win. Six belong to the ruling NDA, while one seat went to the Congress.

The seven women MLAs elected this time are Nilima Devi from Mangaldai, Niso Terangpi from Diphu, Ajanta Neog from Golaghat and Rupali Langthasa from Haflong, all from the BJP. Sewli Mohilary of the BPF won from Kokrajhar, Diptimoyee Choudhury of the AGP retained Bongaigaon, while Congress candidate Baby Begum won from Dhubri.

Ajanta Neog, the state’s finance minister, retained Golaghat by defeating Congress candidate Bitupan Saikia with a margin of 43,759 votes and polled over one lakh votes. First-time candidate Rupali Langthasa registered one of the biggest victories among women candidates, winning Haflong by over 50,000 votes with 78,674 votes polled.

Nilima Devi crossed the one lakh vote mark in Mangaldai and defeated Congress candidate Rijumoni Talukdar by 23,936 votes. In Diphu, Niso Terangpi polled 90,866 votes and defeated independent candidate Jones Ingti Kathar by close to 50,000 votes.

In Kokrajhar, first-time candidate Sewli Mohilary, wife of former BTC chief Hagrama Mohilary, defeated UPPL candidate Lawrence Islary by 39,633 votes. Diptimoyee Choudhury, wife of AGP leader and Lok Sabha MP Phani Bhushan Choudhury, retained Bongaigaon after first entering the Assembly through the 2024 bypolls, winning this time by 24,998 votes.

Congress managed to secure only 19 seats this election, down from 29 in 2021, and Baby Begum remained the party’s lone woman MLA. She registered one of the highest vote counts among women candidates, polling 1,18,362 votes in Dhubri and defeating AIUDF candidate Nazrul Hoque by 68,661 votes.

If one takes a closer look at the contrast, the issue no longer appears to be participation. Assam’s women are already participating in large numbers and shaping electoral outcomes. The gap lies elsewhere, in who gets access to power and who gets considered “winnable” during ticket distribution.

Over the last few years, political parties across Assam have built some of their strongest outreach around women voters. Welfare schemes like Orunodoi, Nijut Moina, free ration programmes, self-help group networks and direct benefit transfers expanded political engagement inside households, particularly in rural and economically vulnerable areas.

Women became central to campaign messaging and welfare politics. Ticket distribution, however, continued to remain heavily male-dominated across parties.

Very few women candidates were fielded in politically secure seats this election and several parties still treated women candidates as selective or symbolic inclusions rather than mainstream contenders.

The imbalance becomes sharper considering Assam has elected only 77 women legislators since 1952.

The scale of women’s participation this election makes the gap more visible than before. Assam did not witness passive voting this time. Women were among the most active participants in the electoral process, across both urban and rural constituencies.

The larger political question for Assam now is, if women are increasingly shaping electoral outcomes, when will that begin to reflect in who actually gets to sit inside the House?

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