Vol. 4, Issue 11, Part D (2018)

Abstract
The democracy will become a real democracy only when women were given equal opportunity to participate in political affairs of the country at all levels. But for several centuries the participation of women in politics is minimal due to prevailing socio-economic conditions prevailing all over the world. There is a lot of gap between women population and their representation at village, Mandal/block, district, state and national levels. Even today most of the women were confined only in casting vote in elections. They are not showing any interest to contest in elections. No serious efforts appear to have been made to mobilize women as a political pressure group by any political party. Caste, personality and families of candidate appear to be more important to voters than party ideology or affiliations. Factors like education, religion, class and tradition also seem to affect women’s participation. In this paper an attempt is made to analyze the participation of women in the middle tier Panchayat Raj institutions in the last elections in Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh.