Mysuru :Even though all political parties bat for 33 percent reservation for women for Assemblies and Parliament, no national party has fielded any woman candidate for the forthcoming General elections from Old Mysuru region.

Among the three Lok Sabha seats, which come under the Old Mysuru region, consisting Hassan, Mandya, Chamarajanagar, Hassan and Mysuru, three women candidates are contesting in Mysuru and another four are contesting in Mandya. Notably, all the women candidates are independents and small-time parties.

In Mysuru, V. Asharani is contesting from Uttama Prajakiya Party, P.S. Sandhya is contesting on a ticket from Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) and N.K. Kaveramma is contesting as Independent.

Interestingly in Mandya Lok Sabha seat, names of all the four independents are Sumalatha (Sumalatha Ambarish, P. Sumalatha, Sumalatha Manjegowda and Sumalatha) and voters may find it difficult to identify their candidate and cast their votes.

In all the general elections held from the region, only Mandya and Mysuru Lok Sabha seats had sent women representatives to Parliament. While cine star Ramya alias Divya Spandana had won the Lok Sabha by-elections from Congress once in 2013 and lost in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Chandraprabha Urs (now late), the daughter of former Chief Minister Devaraja Urs, was successful in winning the elections from Mysuru Lok Sabha seat with a Congress ticket.

Chandraprabha Urs had got elected to Lok Sabha after defeating the scion of the erstwhile royal family Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadiyar in the 1991 general elections.

However, many women candidates have successfully contested the Assembly elections in the districts of Mysuru, Mandya and Chamarajanagar in the past.