Democracy and Political Participation of Women: A Study of General Assembly Elections of Odisha, 2014 Swain Laxmidhar Lecturer, S. S. Degree Mahavidyalaya, Bamakoyi, India Online published on 12 May, 2017. Abstract Democracy is based on representative government, citizen participation, freedom and transparency of political acts. Women constitute more than half of the world population. Now, representation of women in legislatures is around 15 percent of the world. The Beijing platform of Action, there is only twelve countries where women hold 33% or more seats in the parliaments. Political participation of women relates to national and international politics, liberal democracy and development. Democracy poses limitations on effective political participation of women. This study denotes, only 5.9 percent of India's state legislators were women. In Odisha, it has been observed that very few women leaders come forward for contesting the elections as candidates since 1951–52 to 2014 Assembly elections. Total 117 women candidates were contested in 2014, General Assembly Election in Odisha. This study has focused on 10419499 women voters were voted from 14000383 electors (including service voter). Eleven Women Legislatures were elected from different constituency of the Odisha. They are belonged to different category (SC, ST, Gen) from BJD and BJP. Top Keywords Democracy, Representation, Political Participation, Parliament, General Assembly. Top |