Women Voters: Impact on Indian Elections

Women Voters: Impact on Indian Elections

Question: Female voters have been agents of change in a 2005 re-election. Assess the impact of women voters on the previous and forthcoming Bihar elections in India.

- Female voters have been change agents in the 2005 re-election held after the polls threw up a hung Assembly

- This new trend in a patriarchal society has the power to impact election results in upcoming Bihar polls

- Around 46.6% of the voters this year are ladies

- Women in Bihar have been change agents in previous elections as well as state policies

- Bihar is the 4th largest state in the country in terms of total number of electors which is around 55 million

- Bihar is home to 8% of total number of electors in the country

- In the February 2005 elections President’s rule was declared in the State and the Assembly was dissolved

- Re-election was the time when women voters impacted the polls in an extremely short time period

- 36% of all Assembly constituencies in Bihar changed the fate of the winning party in 87 out of 243 constituencies

- From February to October 2014, female percentage poll rose from 42.5% to 44.5% and that of male voters fell to 47%

- Average growth rate in number of female voters was thrice in those constituencies where the winning party was elected as against those constituencies where same political parties underwent re-election

- Not only did women voters cast their votes in re-election, they changed the outcomes

- On an average, each district in Bihar had close to 6 to 7 Assembly constituencies; a study found that growth rates in female voters have a negative impact on re-election of political party while rise in number of male voters had a positive effect on re-election

- Men and women voters can vote differently and women break away from established mores of society and vote independently from the men

- This will play a critical role in the upcoming Bihar elections

Facts and Stats

- There have been 543 parliamentary constituencies and 4120 state assembly constituencies in India in the state of Bihar, since independence.

- Though JDU and BJP formed the winning NDA in 2010, the alliance was broken in 2014

- Currently, RJD and JDU have an alliance with Deve Gowda and the Congress against BJP

- In the recent legislative council elections, BJP emerged as the winning party