consensus candidates under the guise of tradition or community harmony. In some States such as Gujarat, this is further legitimised by the State itself granting monetary rewards for local governments which forgo the election process in favour of adopting consensus candidates. Other women face direct obstructions anywhere from the time of filing nominations right up to announcement of the election results, including: caste and sexually-based verbal abuse; disparagement of the women’s political capacity; harassment, threats or physical assaults; property destruction; restrictions on freedom of movement; and illegal and fraudulent voting practices. The clear trend is to weed out potentially independent-thinking and acting Dalit women from successful nomination. This is done to ensure that local government development benefits remain in the hands of dominant castes and do not reach the Dalits. In terms of exercising authority when successfully elected to local governments, while around one-third of women are able to freely and independently exercise their right to political participation against tremendous odds, the majority are made to effectively act as proxies for primarily dominant caste men. Most elected Dalit women feel they are treated differently from other local government representatives primarily due to being female and Dalit. Overt discriminatory practices are prevalent in local government offices, including prohibitions on Dalit women sitting on chairs alongside other elected representatives; drinking water or tea from vessels used by dominant caste elected representatives. Some Dalit women attempt to actively participate in meetings and taking decisions, but are silenced or ignored; subjected to ‘no confidence’ motions to remove them from office; denied information and support to undertake their duties; etc. This situation is not helped where government officials refuse to address caste and gender discrimination or proxy representation as part of their monitoring local government functioning. All these obstacles prevent Dalit women from exercising effective political authority, which then compromises their ability to deliver more caste and gender responsive development outcomes. Instead, they see development schemes and funds, even those earmarked for Dalits, being siphoned off towards dominant caste communities, further exacerbating the large development gap between them. Political participation through quotas, therefore, in the absence of other measures, has potential to lead to a situation where caste and gender hierarchies are reinforced, and Dalit women are deterred from effective political participation in future. What then are a few of our recommendations to improve the situation?