More women than men voted in first phase of Assam polls

Women voters registered a higher polling percentage than men in the first phase of elections for 65 assembly constituencies in Assam yesterday. Data released by Election Office here said the voting percentage of women was 82.58 while that of men was 81.84.

The total vote polled in the first phase on Monday was 78,24,830 out of a total electorate of 95,19,076 registering a poll percentage of 82.20, it said.

In the last assembly polls, 77.02 per cent male voted as against 75 per cent of women. The highest total poll percentage of 88.07 was recorded in Naoboicha constituency in Lakhimpur district while the lowest of 75.05 per cent was at Silchar in Cachar.

Altogether 37,98,462 women out of 45,99,635 exercised their franchise registering a voter percentage of 82.58 as against 40,26,298 male casting their vote out of a total electorate of 49,19,432 with a poll percentage of 81.84.

Women registered a higher poll per cent than male in 35 of the 65 constituencies, while in more than ten the figures were almost equal. Women also recorded a higher turnout in constituencies of chief ministerial candidate of both the Congress and BJP.

Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi’s Titabor constituency recorded a higher turnout of 84.11 per cent as against 82.16 male voters while in Majuli (ST), from where BJP chief ministerial candidate Sarbananda Sonowal is contesting, women recorded a higher turnout of 84.70 per cent as against 82.10 per cent of men voters.

Polling per centage of women was also higher than men in nine of the 13 districts where voting was held yesterday in the constituencies under it.

These include Karimganj, Karbi Anglong, Udalguri, Sonitpur, Golaghat,Jorhat, Sibsagar, Lakhimpur and Dhemaji, according to the EC data.