A rape survivor’s mother, an anganwadi worker, a Muslim women’s rights activist, a Dalit beauty pageant winner - the Congress party’s list of candidates in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections seemed to tick all the right boxes when it came to women’s representation. Living up to its promise of offering 40 percent reservation in tickets to women, the Congress party, under Priyanka Gandhi’s flagship campaign ‘Ladki Hoon Lad Sakti Hoon’ fielded 148 women candidates - a first for any party. However, only one of the 148 candidates faced an electoral win. The rest, including the star candidates, failed to even muster 3,000 votes each.