Women’s organisations lash out against Karnataka all-male Cabinet

Several women’s rights organisations have voiced strong objections to Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar’s all-male Cabinet, questioning the complete exclusion of women. The organisations have demanded that the government induct qualified women into the Council of Ministers. 

‘Contradictory stands’

Terming the move “anti-women” and “anti-democratic”, All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) said that the way the Cabinet was formed goes against Constitutional values of equality and democracy. 

A statement issued by Chandrakumari and Devi, president and general secretary, respectively, of AIDWA Karnataka, said that the decision to exclude women from the Cabinet, despite women constituting 52% of the State’s electorate, reflected a deliberate attempt to keep them out of the political decision-making process.

“The total number of women MLAs elected in the 2023 Assembly elections is 10, out of which four belong to the Congress. At a time when women’s organisations across the country are fighting for the immediate implementation of 33% reservation for women in Parliament and State Assemblies, not giving a single woman a place in the Karnataka cabinet is a move that goes against women’s political empowerment,” the statement said.

It further pointed to the stark contradiction that the Congress, which supports the Women’s Reservation Act in Parliament, denied women berths in the Cabinet in a State it governs.

Open letter to CM

Naveddu Nilladiddare, a network of feminists and women’s organisations, wrote an open letter to the Chief Minister, strongly condemning the complete exclusion of women from the cabinet. 

“When the first Cabinet was constituted following your taking charge as Chief Minister, without a single woman, we expressed our deep concern but chose to wait, hoping that the Cabinet expansion would correct this glaring omission. Instead, the expansion has entrenched the exclusion of women. An all-male Cabinet is not an oversight. It is a political choice. It sends an unmistakable message that women and women’s leadership remain dispensable when it comes to the exercise of State power,” it read. 

Pointing to the last-minute omission of Gayathri Shanthegouda from the final Cabinet, the coalition said that “if women’s representation can be negotiated away to accommodate internal political equations, it exposes how women’s leadership is treated as an expendable political bargaining chip rather than a democratic imperative.”