Male-female voter gap narrows: Final voters’ list sees rise of over 2L female voters in state

Kolkata: The final voters’ list published by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Monday has witnessed a rise of over 2 lakh female voters since the last Lok Sabha (LS) polls conducted between March and June 2024. The rise in male voters has been around 70,000 and the figures have narrowed the male-female voter gap in the state.

According to the latest Election Commission data, the state has 3,76,00,611 female voters and 3,87,93,743 male voters, reflecting a gap of 11,93,132 electors, compared to the last Lok Sabha polls where male and female voters numbered 3,87,24,016 and 3,73,98,991 respectively, with a difference of 13,25,025 voters.

In the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, the gender gap between male and female voters was 2,158,747, with 24,798,089 male voters and 22,639,342 female voters, but by the 2009 polls, this gap increased to 2,642,312, as male voters rose to 27,567,740 while female voters numbered 24,925,428.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the gender gap further narrowed to 2,546,337, with 32,689,480 male voters and 30,143,134 female voters and in the 2019 Parliamentary elections, it further reduced to 1,902,623, as female voters increased to 34,048,666 compared to 35,951,289 male voters.

“A careful analysis of the details of the last three elections has revealed that the male and female voter margin is sharply coming down. If this trend continues, then it will not be far away when Bengal becomes one of the few states where female electors will overshadow the male voters,” a political observer said.

Mathematically, in the six months since the Lok Sabha polls, the number of women electors has grown by 201,620 — nearly three times the increase in male electors, which rose by only 69,727. Interestingly, there has been deletion of nearly 7 lakh voters in the new voter list while 10.78 lakh electors have been included.