Once again, women voters outdo men in Himachal Pradesh

Subhash Rajta

Shimla, June 3

Women have defeated men yet again in terms of voting percentage in the state. Just like in the 2019 Lok Sabha poll, women voters have registered a higher voting percentage than men this time. For the four Lok Sabha seats, 72.6 per cent women cast their vote as compared to 69.3 per cent male voters. The gap between the women and the men voting percentage for the six Assembly bypolls is much bigger — compared 70.4 male voters casting their vote, 77.4 per cent women exercised their right to vote.

In the Lok Sabha poll, women outstripped men in all but the Shimla parliamentary seat, where the male voters recorded a slightly higher percentage of 72.54 as against 69.92 logged by women voters. In the Assembly byelections, women are way ahead of men in all six Assembly constituencies. The gap in the Barsar Assembly constituency is more than 10 per cent!

In the last Lok Sabha elections, 74.3 per cent women voters had cast their vote against 68.4 per cent male voters. The women voter turnout was 5.83 per cent higher than male voter turnout, which was the third highest gap in the male and female voting percentage in the entire country. Incidentally, in the Vidhan Sabha elections, women voters have consistently outstripped male voters after the 1991 elections.

No wonder, both the parties went with a long list of schemes and promises to woo the women voters. According to Zainab Chandel, Himachal Pradesh Mahila Congress president, the Congress sought women votes on schemes like Rs 1,500 pension to women, MSP on milk, schemes for single women and their children on which they will be seeking women’s vote.

“Besides, in our manifesto, we promised an annual grant of Rs 1 lakh to one woman of a poor family, 50 per cent reservation for women in government jobs, increase in honorarium for anganwari workers and mid-day meal workers, etc. We are looking at financial and political empowerment of women,” said Chandel.

Meanwhile, the BJP sought women votes on schemes like Ujjawala Yojana, making woman the head of the family on ration cards, raising reservation for women to 50 per cent in Panchayati Raj institutions, drone didi, lakhpati didi schemes.

“Also, around 28 crore Jan Dhan accounts have been opened for women, around 75 per cent of the around four crore houses built under the PM Awas Yojana has been registered in the name of women and 14 crore washrooms have been built,” said Vandana Yogi, president of the state BJP Mahila Morcha.