DS-story-Coverstory - Assembly election results: How women voted

The claim by a section of the media and the BJP that the ‘silent’ woman voter had risen above caste and other considerations and voted for the BJP is not factually right.

Soon after it became clear that the Bharatiya Janata Party would form the government in four of the five election-bound States, including its prize catch Uttar Pradesh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed party workers at the BJP headquarters in Delhi and acknowledged women’s contribution in ensuring the party’s victory. He said he would like to thank all the “sisters, daughters and mothers” for their big role in the BJP’s victory. “They have given the BJP their blessings. Wherever they have voted more than men, the BJP has won by bumper votes,” he said. They trusted the BJP, he said, as they knew it would look after their most basic needs. He recalled how as Gujarat Chief Minister, he told those who feared for his safety that he had the protective armour of thousands of sisters and daughters of the State.

It is unknown whether the BJP’s bumper margins were because of female or male voters, but what is known is that the voting percentage of women had decreased from that in the 2017 Assembly elections. According to media reports citing the Election Commission of India, in 2022, the overall turnout in Uttar Pradesh was 60.8 per cent, down from 61.11 per cent in 2017. This time 62.24 per cent of women and 59.15 per cent of men voted; the corresponding figures were 63.38 per cent and 59.21 for 2017, indicating a decrease in the voting percentage.

Male electors (those on the voters’ list) in Uttar Pradesh have always outnumbered their female counterparts. In 2022, women made up only 46.38 per cent of the electorate. This means that even if the voting percentage was higher among women, the absolute number of female votes cast would be significantly lower than the number of male votes cast. The Table shows that a big jump in female voting percentage happened in the 2012 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, in which the BJP received just 15 per cent of the votes. It was also in that election that the female voting percentage crossed that of men. This trend continued in the 2017 election. However, in 2022, the female voting percentage was lower than in 2017, while the male voting percentage increased. In other words, the gap that had increased in 2017 has reduced in 2022. Thus, it is far from clear that the BJP’s electoral success in Uttar Pradesh is related to women’s increasing assertion of their independent political choices.