Plans by the nation's largest cable television company, Tele-Communications Inc., to drop the Lifetime Channel, a service aimed at women, from cable systems in several areas of the country have prompted an unusually angry, well-organized protest from women's groups and many prominent political figures, who call the decision a blow against the interests of women.

TCI has announced that it intends to drop a number of cable channels, including Lifetime, by Oct. 7, to make room for the all-news channel being created by Rupert Murdoch's Fox Inc., a channel in which TCI has a deal to become a partner.

Among those criticizing the cable company are Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey; Representative Patricia Schroeder of Colorado; Libby Pataki, the wife of Gov. George E. Pataki of New York, and Representative Peter A. DeFazio of Oregon, who represents the district, including the city of Eugene, which has the most viewers of any region affected by the TCI decision.

The vehemence of the reaction has upset TCI executives, who say they wonder how a decision that affects less than 10 percent of Lifetime's audience could elicit so strong a response. And, according to several executives close to the situation, the public nature of the protest against TCI has so angered the company that it may have negative implications for any plans by Lifetime's parent companies, the Hearst Corporation and the Walt Disney Company, to start new cable services.

''I think if Disney has ideas for a second children's channel, it may be dead on arrival,'' one executive familiar with the dispute said. Carriage on TCI is considered crucial to the start-up of new cable channels.

Some of the strongest criticism of TCI came from Representative Schroeder, who said, ''Women kind of feel like they're being rolled over so that the guys who run these companies can make more money.'' She labeled the decision a ''power play'' by two executives, Mr. Murdoch and John Malone, the chief executive of TCI.

Senator Bradley called the decision ''incredibly short-sighted.'' He added that the willingness of Mr. Murdoch to pay about $200 million to get carriage of the news channel ''shows that Fox might have an agenda of its own that is anti-woman.''

And Representative DeFazio, a longtime foe of cable deregulation, has fired off a letter to TCI executives ''making the point,'' he said, ''that this is the sort of arrogance and self-dealing that led to the reregulation of cable in 1992.''

Fox executives, concerned about the outcry, said they had had nothing to do with TCI's decision.

Lifetime, which is seen in 66 million homes, expects to lose more than 300,000 homes from TCI cable systems, executives of the channel said. Originally, Lifetime executives said, it was scheduled to lose up to 1 million, but after the channel placed advertisements in newspapers and viewers called to protest, some cable systems owned by TCI reversed the decision to drop Lifetime.

Robert Thomson, a senior vice president of TCI, expressed surprise at what he called the ''vigor with which the Lifetime people are manning the barricades.''

''It's laughably out of scale,'' he said.

He and other TCI executives said the reaction had to do with one factor: It is an election year. Even some supporters of Lifetime's cause noted that no politician was likely to be hurt by defending women.

Senator Bradley, who is not running for re-election, said he was moved to comment not by lobbying from Lifetime but because he was told of the decision by a friend who is a woman. And Representative DeFazio said he was responding to the outcry of his constituents and female members of his staff.

The selection of Lifetime as one of the channels to be dropped to make room for Mr. Murdoch's news channel, at least the third and often the fourth news channel on many cable systems, surprised many people in the cable industry, because Lifetime is among the highest-rated channels.

But Jedd Palmer, the vice president for programming at TCI, argued that Lifetime was engaging in ''the propaganda of distortion,'' both by exaggerating the impact of the loss of subscribers and in arguing that it deserved special consideration for appealing to women.

Calling Lifetime his favorite channel, Mr. Palmer said: ''I resent the implication that they are the women's network. Other networks come in to us and say Lifetime is not telling the truth. Lifetime is a women's channel only in name and advertising.

''What I'm suggesting is that it programs for ratings,'' not specifically for women, he said.

In advancing their case that the service is aimed at women, Lifetime executives cite the channel's yearlong awareness campaign on breast cancer and special programming devoted to issues of importance to women in the election. But Mr. Thomson said: ''Look at most of the programming. It's reruns of series and movies.''

Lifetime does show reruns of programs like ''L.A. Law'' and ''Designing Women.'' Still, a Lifetime executive said TCI's refusal to acknowledge the channel's special appeal to women proved that the company was out of touch with how viewers felt about the channel.

Mr. Murdoch concluded a deal with TCI in June for TCI to carry the new Fox News channel in 10 million of the 14 million homes that the company's cable systems reach. In exchange, Mr. Murdoch promised to pay TCI $10 or more per subscriber, a figure that stunned much of the television industry. TCI can also acquire a 20 percent equity stake in the channel after three years.

Mr. Thomson said TCI would use the money to invest in expanding the channel capacity on its systems ''so we won't have to make these kinds of difficult choices again.'' Mr. Palmer said that to make room for the news channel, TCI was eliminating other channels in some of its systems, including some that the company has an interest in, to ''spread the pain.''

Mr. Thomson also said that other channels could address the needs of women, naming the Home and Garden Channel as one that ''has a women's constituency.'' But he added that TCI was in talks about helping create a new channel that would specifically address women's issues.