Women voter outnumber men in HP polls

More women have exercised their franchise than men in the Himachal Pradesh Assembly polls; The state recorded its highest turnout at 74.61%, according to official figures.

 As many as 19,10,582 female voters exercised their franchise against 18,11,061 male voters in the hill state, where the BJP seeks to dislodge the ruling Congress on the issue of corruption while deflecting attacks on demonetisation and the GST.

The number of male voters in the electoral roll was about 74,200 more than female voters.

In 48 out of 68 Assembly constituencies, the polling percentage of women was higher than men, whereas in only 15 seats the number of female voters was more than men.

In the biggest district,  Kangra , 4,61,278 women cast their votes against 3,96,208 men, outnumbering them in all 15 Assembly seats.

Similarly, in Mandi district, the number of votes polled by women was 2,96,898 against 2,71,725 by men.

Women voters outnumbered men in all the 14 constituencies in Hamirpur, Una and Bilaspur districts, polling 4,22,503 votes against 3,64,285 by men.

A whopping 74.61% of the electorate voted in the November 9 election, as compared to 73.51%   in 2012, 71.61% in 2007-08 and 74.51% in 2003.

Doon and Nalagarh constituencies in Solan district recorded the highest polling percentage of 88.95% and 84.27%, followed by Shillai 84.18%, Seraj 83.20%, Nahan 82.48% and Sri Nainadevi 82.04%.

The other four constituencies which recorded more than 80% polling are Paonta (80.43%), Banjar (80.37%), Jubbal and Kotkhai (80.24%) and Balh (80.13%).

The most literate constituency Shimla (Urban) recorded the lowest polling percentage of 63.76%, followed by Jaisinghpur 63.91%, Baijnath 65.64%, Bhoranj 65.84%, Solan 66.65 %, Kusumpti 66.97 %, Sarkaghat 67.99 % and Hamirpur 69.11 %.

Poll results will be announced on December 18.