More women than men voted in 38 seats: Report
DEHRADUN: Women voters have outnumbered male voters in 38 of the 70 assembly seats in Uttarakhand in the February 14 assembly elections. More women than men have cast votes in 33 assembly constituencies in nine hill districts and five constituencies in four plain districts of the state, revealed a report released by Dehradun-based Social Development for Communities Foundation (SDC) regarding the women participation in the current assembly elections.
Anoop Nautiyal, founder of SDC Foundation, said that on the lines of 2017 elections, more women than men cast their votes in 33 out of 34 seats in nine hill districts. It was only in the Purola seat of Uttarkashi district that 1,260 more men voters turned up to cast their votes than women voters, he said.
On an average, 29,169 women and 25,284 men exercised their franchise in each seat in the hill districts. In this way, the average total of 54,453 votes were cast by men and women voters in each assembly seat of hill districts.
SDC Foundation’s analysis shows that the biggest difference in the number of women and men voters was in Ghansali. There 9,541 more women voted than men. Similarly, 9,381 more women voted than men in Rudraprayag and 7,943 more women in Bageshwar.
According to the report, 859,642 out of 1,623,951 male voters, or 52.94% voted in 34 hill seats in the 2022 elections. In comparison, out of 1,560,869 women voters, 991,748 or 63.54% voted. In this way, a total of 132,106 more women voted compared to men in 34 hill assembly seats.
Nautiyal said the situation in 2022 has been more or less the same as in 2017. “Like the last election, this time also more women voted than men in 33 out of 34 hill seats. Only in Purola seat of Uttarkashi district, again more male voters came to vote than women voters,” he said.
According to the report, this time the gap between female and male voters in the seats of hill districts has decreased
ON AN AVERAGE, 29,169 WOMEN AND 25,284 MEN EXERCISED THEIR FRANCHISE IN EACH SEAT IN THE HILL DISTRICTS
slightly as compared to 2017. This time the difference was an average of 3,885 per seat; whereas in the 2017 elections, there was a difference of 5,116 votes.
Anoop Nautiyal said that this may have happened due to reverse migration during Covid.
“It is possible that some people who returned during the Covid period may have stayed back in the villages, although no such concrete data is available at the moment. There is a need to conduct a ground study in this matter,” he said.
According to Vidush Pandey, Praveen Upreti and Pyare Lal, who contributed to the preparation of the report, more women than men have voted in five of the 36 seats in the four plain districts. These include Kaladhungi, Nanakmatta, Khatima, Doiwala and Rishikesh assembly constituencies.