With the poll picture becoming clear, not a single woman candidate could make it in Kerala. All the nine women candidates from across the allies failed to make any ripple among the politically vibrant electorate in the State.
 
One of the most prominent among the nine, CPM Central committee member and Mattannur MLA K K Shailaja was expected to win in Vadakara as per the poll predictions. However, she lost it to Congress’s young blood, Palakkad MLA Shafi Parambil by a margin of over 1 Lakh votes. When CPM fielded Shailaja from Vadakara, which used to be a Left bastion before, it was welcomed by all as there were protests from various corners for not considering her for ministerial berth even after winning from Mattannur constituency in the 2021 Assembly elections with a striking majority of over 60,000 votes.  

Another strong woman candidate was CPI senior leader Annie Raja who was fielded against Congress national leader Rahul Gandhi. Although Rahul’s victory was almost sure, the Left leader could pose a great challenge to him and NDA candidate K Surendran. She managed to bag a total of 2,83,023 votes, becoming second in the race which was won by Rahul with a whopping 3,64,422 votes. Annie Raja had taken strong exception to Rahul not announcing his decision to contest from Rae Bareli as well before the polls in Kerala. She had also held it as “injustice” shown to the people of Wayanad and maintained it as “against political integrity”. 

In Alathur Congress’ sitting MP Ramya Haridas was also expected to get a second term. However, the voters chose CPM leader and Devaswom Minister K Radhakrishnan over her. Ramya had earlier told Mathrubhumi English that she was not bothered if Radhakrishnan is basically from the constituency itself. Radhakrishnan became the lone LDF MP from the State. In the same constituency, another woman candidate T N Sarasu was also in fray with the NDA ticket. She is a known educator with a clear political stance. However, she came third in the political run. She, however, managed to bag a total of 1,88230 votes.

BJP firebrand leader Shobha Surendran who was fielded by the NDA with much confidence in Alappuzha, which was considered as one of the A Class constituencies by the saffron party, also bit the dust by reaching third in the race with a total of 2,99,648 votes. The seat was clinched by Congress’ K C Venugopal with a margin of 87,266 votes.

Left candidate in Ernakulam K J Shine, who has already proved her mettle as a municipal councillor in North Paravur, also could not make any difference. Even though she satisfied the caste equation of the constituency, she could not pose a risk to the advancement of sitting MP Hibi Eden, who won with a huge margin of 2,50,385 votes.

The LDF ally CPI's woman representation is also 25 percent on par with another NDA ally, BDJS, whose four candidates include a woman.

The remaining female candidates, all belonging to the NDA that had given at least 25 percent woman representation while deciding candidates in Kerala – BJP’s Nivedita Subramanian in Ponnani and M L Aswhini in Kasaragod, and BDJS’ Sangeetha  Viswanathan in Idukki– emerged third in their respective constituencies attaining a total of 1,24,294 votes, 2,13,153 and 9,1323 votes respectively. 

With no women representation from Kerala to the 18th Lok Sabha, the “progressive” and “politically literate” tag of Kerala comes under scrutiny. The political fronts in the State cutting across their political ideology had extended support to the historic women’s bill when it was introduced for the first time in the Parliament by the BJP-led Centre. However, not even a single party had walked the talk in giving 33 percent tickets to women.

A change in the pattern of offering tickets to women candidates in seats with low winnability by the main political parties is not expected even in the future. In most instances, the women, transgenders, Dalits and other marginalised sections of the society are sidelined citing their inexperience and ineptness in the field of politics. However, the question being raised is how the “inexperience” could be addressed without giving them an opportunity of exposure.