When the country is debating on 30% reservation for women in Assemblies and Parliament, the recent elections in Hindi belt (Delhi, Rajasthan, Madya Pradesh, and Chattisgarh) threw up three more women Chief Ministers (out of them one is voted again to power) and took the tally of women Chief Ministers in India to five. This is a very encouraging signal. Not only the number of women chief ministers have gone up but also the fact that Ms. Sheila Dikshit, a women chief minister managed a come back in spite of the anti-incumbency quite often observed in a poverty-ridden democracy like ours, as satisfying the expectation of people and winning their mandate for consecutive second term is not an easy job. Except for Delhi everywhere else, the results conform to the emerging trend that in Indian politics anti-incumbency results would be the norm for some more years to come.

In a way, the raising voice of women in politics would help uplifting the other half India i.e. the suppressed 50% of the nation. All through these years since Independence, we have had one Governor or one Chief Justice of a High Court or one Chief Election Commissioner or one Prime Minister as the women at a time. The day should not be far away when we would have a woman President for the country. However, in our Independent India, this is the first time that there are sizable number of women occupying high mantle in politics. In this respect, the five women Chief Ministers made a record and started the positive trend. Apart from implementing their party programmes and mandate in their States, they should also collectively devise strategies and programmes to uplift the downtrodden and suppressed women in this country. If they could not, this emergence of five women as Chief Ministers would only help as a statistical data.

It is a pity that Sheila Dikshit was announced as the Chief Minister by the Congress high command after a long silence for a week. Ms. Dikshit was presented to the people as the Chief Ministerial candidate during the election and Delhites endorsed it. One wonders what made the Congress high command to even consider the rebel voices that suddenly emerged. It only goes to show that the Congress high command is always wary about any person within the party gaining ground and an image taller than her/his image.

The five Chief Ministers should have regular meetings amongst themselves and discuss peoples' issues especially the issues related to women empowerment. Any program that could uplift any section of population without affecting the other sections need no party endorsements. In that respect, these women chief ministers must cut across party lines and collectively work towards the upliftment of women and downtrodden. These meetings can happen alongside the Inter State Council meeting every year. Some of the programmes that require immediate attention of these five Chief Ministers are prohibiting foetus sex identification and abortion, enhancing female child literacy, equal pay for women as men if the job happens to be the same, enacting strict legislations to curb sexual discrimination and sexual harassment at work place, curbing domestic violence against women, eradicating dowry system, instituting women counseling forums in each taluk to get the legal advise to tackle the issues that confront them, All women Police Stations in all states, more representations for women in politics, enacting women's reservation in Legislative bodies, and above all programmes to highlight the conservative social practices that affect women such as different standards for male and female, widow remarriage, ill-treatment of widows even today at villages and towns and the associated superstitions and innovative programs and schemes that would give economic independence to a woman in the family.

In order to make sure that there are more women participating in politics, these women chief ministers must encourage women party functionaries at various levels. They should mentor them to take more responsibilities within the party and if some of them happen to be members of the Legislative Assembly they must be mentored to the level where they could take ministerial responsibilities. If these things do not happen, the upsurge of women in Indian politics with the emergence of these five chief ministers would become a one time record instead of being the start of a phenomenon. Some of the expectations evinced here can easily be achieved if a woman Chief Minister is also powerful in the party organization.

Apart from the mutual exchange of ideas and programs amongst the women Chief Ministers, it is also desired if the woman party Presidents, woman party leaders and woman Parliamentarians are also part of this suggested forum. For instance the likes of Mamta Banerjee, MayaDevi, Sushma Sharma, Najma Heptulla must be part of this "Women's Power" forum. It must also be enlarged to include leading functionaries of All India Women's Forum, leading women in judiciary, academia, sports, media, and executive. In Today's India, we have achieved the needed threshold in terms of women power but the only thing is that it needs to be consolidated. Any energy that is frittered away would not fetch the desired results. Time only would tell whether this raising women power can consolidate itself and catalyst the must wanted change. If only it happens, India could become the developed country by 2020.