women-voters-of-west-bengal-are-a-force-to-reckon-with

With cohesive voting patterns and higher turnout compared to men in recent elections, women voters, constituting nearly 50 per cent of West Bengal’s electorate, have become a pivotal voting bloc that all political parties are vying to woo, ahead of the parliamentary polls.

 

According to the latest data from the Election Commission, the state has 3.73 crore women voters, 12 lakh less than the number of registered male voters at 3.85 crore. However, there has been a notable increase in the registration of fresh women voters, with their numbers growing by 9.8 per cent between 2019 and 2024.

 

Interestingly, in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, women recorded a higher voter turnout than men, with 81.79 per cent of women casting their votes compared to 81.35 per cent of men.

 

Data showed that in the 2019 elections, women registered a higher turnout than men in 17 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

 

According to the Election Commission data, the state now has 968 female voters for every 1,000 male voters. This showed a considerable rise from 2019, when the number was 949, and grew in 2021 to 961 for every 1,000 male voters.

 

Political analysts pointed out that while women voters have traditionally been loyal supporters of the TMC, along with minorities who make up around 30 per cent of the electorate, the BJP tasted limited success in wooing women voters, although making significant inroads in SC-ST reserved seats in 2021 assembly polls.

 

They said that the TMC has the advantage of having a woman, Mamata Banerjee, at its helm, who has garnered the support of women, especially from marginalised backgrounds, throughout her political career, while the state BJP lacks popular women faces.

 

TMC Leader of the Parliamentary Party in Rajya Sabha, Derek O’Brien, on the other hand, alleged that the BJP-RSS ideology is not aligned with women’s empowerment.

 

A glance at the voting pattern in the 2019 elections showed that in 17 out of the 42 Lok Sabha seats, women recorded a higher turnout than men.

 

In these seats, the TMC emerged victorious in eight, the BJP in seven, and the Congress in two. In seven of these seats, the difference in turnout between women and men was more than five per cent. In Malda North, this gap was as high as 7.79 per cent.

 

Women voters outnumbered men in only one Lok Sabha seat in the state, Dum Dum.

 

In Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri, Murshidabad, Ranaghat, Krishnangar, Bardhaman Purba, Bolpur, Bishnupur, Jhargram, Kanthi, Tamluk, Ghatal, Bishnupur seats, women voting percentage was above 85 per cent, and much higher than that of men.

 

In the 2021 assembly elections, the TMC secured more than 50 per cent of the women’s votes, while the BJP garnered 37 per cent. The saffron party also made significant inroads into the SC-ST women’s voting bloc, particularly performing well in the reserved seats.

 

Chandrima Bhattacharya, state Finance Minister and TMC women wing’s president, stated that unlike the BJP, her party does not view women as merely a “voting bloc”.