Only 11 women are contesting the Parliamentary elections this year as against 19 in 1998 while 45 are aspiring for an Assembly seat this time as against 247 in 1995.

Mainstream parties like the Congress and Shiv Sena have fielded only one candidate each for the Parliamentary polls while the BJP has nominated only two. The Nationalist Congress Party has put up three women candidates while the Gondwana Gantantra Party has fielded two besides the two Independents in the fray.

Prabha Rau of the Congress, a former president of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee, is contesting from Wardha Parliamentary constituency while Suryakanta Patil, who was elected to the 12th Lok Sabha from Hingoli on a Congress ticket, is now in the fray as NCPcandidate.

Nivedita Mane, who unsuccessfully contested the 1996 Lok Sabha elections from Ichalkaranji as an Independent and later in 1998 on a Shiv Sena ticket, will again try her luck as an NCP candidate from the same constituency.

Jaywantiben Mehta of the BJP is pitted against her old rival Murli Deora of the Congress in the prestigious Mumbai South Lok Sabha constituency. The party has also fielded Dr Pratibhatai Lokhande to take on NCP chief Sharad Pawar on his home turf Baramati.

The Shiv Sena has fielded Bhavna Gawli in Washim where she will take on NCP'S Javed Khan and Anantrao Desmukh of the Congress. In the 1977 elections four women contested, which came down to two in 1980, six contested in 1984, in the next election there were eight while in 1991, there were 34 women candidates.

The number of successful women candidates is also not very impressive as in 1996 only three of the 42 who contested won while only two of the 19 women candidates won Lok Sabha seats in 1998.

The numbers for theassembly elections are slightly better with 36 in 1962 assembly elections, 18 in 1967, 53 in 1972, 51 in 1978 and 48 in the 1980 assembly polls respectively.

In 1990 as many as 83 women candidates were stood for assembly elections which increased to 148 in 1995 and the highest number of 247 women contested in 1995. But once again the number of successful women candidates are very few.