[Source: Reuters]

Ranika Jaiswal’s family in Varanasi has boasted a string of officials in India’s ruling BJP party over the last four decades.

Now she wants a piece of the action.

“Three generations of my family, all men, have been with the party. But now it’s changing – as a woman I am also equally invested,” said the 48-year-old, who is seeking the support of party officials to stand as a lawmaker from Uttar Pradesh in the 2024 national election. “I think it’s critical for more female candidates to contest.”

Decades after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was born from a Hindu nationalist organisation dominated by men, its sustained electoral gains depend on women, the rising power of Indian elections.

Women’s turnout at national elections surged from 53% in 2004 to 67% in 2019 – a historic moment when it edged ahead of men’s percentage turnout for the first time – and next year is projected to rise further to about 69%, according to officials at the Election Commission of India.

India is changing apace – though you wouldn’t guess from a glance at parliament. The country’s nearly 700 million women are still stuck on the sidelines of political decision-making, making up about one in 10 national and regional lawmakers.

For the BJP, winning the hearts and minds of women voters is central to its growth strategy to stave off electoral stagnation after a decade in power and cement its dominance at the ballot box, according to Reuters interviews with 10 officials in the party, including ministers and federal lawmakers.

Failure could cede ground to its arch rival Congress, the party of former premier Indira Gandhi and her daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi, as it seeks momentum for a comeback.

The representation gap is one stark example of the deep inequalities still facing women in India, the world’s most populous nation, where equality advocates say a deeply entrenched patriarchy has defied the rapid pace of economic development and modernisation.

Women have a raw deal from birth. Female newborns – considered of lower value by some families – are more likely to die than male babies, while girls are more likely to drop out of school than boys, according to the UNICEF. The unevenness runs all the way to corporate boardrooms, where women made up fewer than one in 20 CEOs in 2021, a Deloitte report found.