Lok Sabha polls: Women voters outnumber men in fifth phase of polls

More of the women electorate have voted in both Odisha and Jharkhand as well in the two phases of polling that have taken place in these states since May 13

Women have out-voted men in the fifth phase of the Lok Sabha polls that was held on May 20.

In the 2019 general elections, the overall turnout of women voters was better than men – a first in the history of Lok Sabha elections.

However, the turnout of the male electorate bettered that of women in the first four phases of the ongoing 2024 Lok Sabha polls that covered 379 of the 543 seats.

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According to the voter turnout data, which the Election Commission (EC) released on Thursday, 63 per cent of the women electorate voted on the 49 seats that went to the polls on May 20, compared to 61.48 per cent of the male electorate on the back of better turnout of women electorate in Jharkhand, Odisha, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh.

In Uttar Pradesh, where the polling was held on 14 seats, 58.51 per cent of the women electorate voted compared to 57.60 per cent of men on May 20.

More women than men voted in Amethi, Banda, Faizabad, Fatehpur, Gonda, Rare Bareli, Kaiserganj, and Kaushambi. In Amethi, 51.26 per cent of its male electorate and 57.75 per cent of the constituency’s women electorate voted. The turnout for men was better than women in Uttar Pradesh in the seats that went to the polls in the state in the first four phases.

In neighbouring Bihar, barring the first phase, a better percentage of the women electorate than that of men had turned up for voting in phases II to IV. The trend became sharper in the fifth phase.

According to the EC data, 61.58 per cent of women voted compared to 52.42 per cent of men in the seats that voted on May 20 – Hajipur, Samastipur, Madhubani, Saran and Sitamarhi. The difference was stark in Madhubani where only 46.66 per cent of the male electorate compared with 60.08 of the women electorate turned up for voting.

More of the women electorate have voted in both Odisha and Jharkhand as well during the two phases of polling that has taken place in these states since May 13.

However, in West Bengal, where the percentage of women electorate exercising their right to vote was better than that of the men electorate in the first four phases, their numbers dipped marginally in the fifth phase.

The EC data states that 78.48 per cent of the male electorate and 78.43 per cent of the women electorate voted. Of the seven of Bengal’s seats that voted on Monday, the turnout of women dipped in Barrackpore, Howrah, and Serampore.

All leading politicians have reached out specifically to the women electorate in recent weeks, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while addressing women  only meetings in Varanasi and elsewhere, while West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her Odisha counterpart Naveen Patnaik showcasing the pro-women schemes that the state governments of West Bengal and Odisha, respectively, run.

In Delhi, which is scheduled to go to polls on Saturday, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has spoken of delivering upon his promise of providing a monthly honorarium to women while the leitmotif of the Congress campaign is its promise of a monthly honorarium of over Rs 8,000 to women of poor households.