- The recently concluded assembly elections to five states have amply demonstrated that the women voters are coming out of their hitherto camouflaged cocoons in large numbers to exercise their franchise. This trend is catching up of late where it was common to notice women voters usually preferring to stay away from voting owing to a variety of reasons. Thankfully, better awareness, as well as empowerment initiatives on the back of sustained campaigns urging women to come out in larger numbers, are paying dividends. Hearteningly, present-day women will not allow themselves to be left behind anymore but rather wish to be counted amongst the game-changers in deciding who will govern them.
PC: Prannoy Roy
- No wonder, greater participation of women in the electoral process is now a phenomenon cast in stone going by the higher female voter turnout percentages in the recent many elections. As mentioned above, the just-concluded five-state polls are proving no different with female voting percentages exceeding males in Uttarakhand, Goa, Manipur, and in three of Uttar Pradesh’s first six phases, including a whopping 11 percentage point difference in the sixth phase. Note that women voters trail male ones only marginally in Punjab. Remember, it was a different story in the Hindi heartland twenty years ago. Mind you, male voter turnout trumped women by 6 and 3 percentage points in UP and Uttarakhand respectively in the 2002 assembly elections.
- What are the reasons for witnessing such a change in the voting patterns? For one, Indian politics has undergone a change over the years for sure. Both the central and state governments have laid tremendous emphasis on welfare schemes projecting greater empathy for women voters. Of course, women seem to be rewarding those governments too by choosing worthies. For instance, chief ministers like the late Jayalalithaa of Tamil Nadu and incumbent Nitish Kumar of Bihar can credit their long stints courtesy nurturing of women vote banks. Not to be left behind, the Narendra Modi government has sharpened political outreach to women like no other past central government through provisioning household toilets, LPG connections, and piped water.
PC: M M Farooqui
- Moreover, BJP’s major campaign planks in UP like improved law and order and ration delivery explicitly court women voters, as an attempt to counter economic stagnation and price rise. Worryingly, even as the woman voter is making her presence felt, five state elections failed largely to meet the issue of internal migrations in India, and it is here that the Election Commission must step up to help migrants exercise their franchise too. Understandably, politics across five states and some more may change radically as the trend of targeting women voters who are regarded as silent voters will intensity. On a flip note, and ironically, changing dynamics in voter turnout aren’t reflected in women proportionately entering politics and being awarded tickets to fight elections to assemblies and Parliament. Needless to mention, this would constitute the next fundamental shift in Indian politics which should be a much-needed welcome change indeed.
