22 May,2019 10:21 AM IST | | mid-day online desk
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Nearly 60 per cent female voters came out to exercise their franchise in Bihar in the Lok Sabha
elections as against just about 55 per cent turnout for men. As per the figures released by the Election Commission, the overall turnout for female voters stood at 59.92 per cent as against 55.26 per cent for men.
The constituencies which registered the highest female turnouts were Katihar (72.37), Supaul (71.64), Kishanganj (70.37), Araria (69.39), Purnea (68.15), Begusarai (67.13), Samastipur (66.74), Vaishali (66.62) and Ujiarpur (65.12).
In contrast, the male turnout did not exceed 65 per cent in any of the 40 seats in the state and exceeded 60 per cent in only five Supaul, Araria, Kishanganj, Katihar and Purnea, it said.
Notably, among the constituencies with the highest female turnouts, only Supaul and Vaishali had a woman candidate as one of the main contestants. While sitting Congress MP Ranjeet Ranjan is in the fray from Supaul, in Vaishali the LJP has fielded Veena Devi.
However, all the constituencies which went to polls in the last phase registered lower female turnouts. Patna Sahib, which covers the entire Bihar capital, saw a measly 43.07 per cent female turnout as against 49.27 per cent men. The seat is witnessing a high-profile battle between actor-turned-politician and second term MP Shatrughan Sinha, who is the contesting on a Congress ticket, and Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad who has been fielded by the BJP.
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In adjoining Pataliputra, Lalu Prasad's daughter Misa Bhartis presence in the fray seems to have failed to enthuse female voters as their turnout stood at 52.40 per cent compared with 59.07 per cent for male. In Sasaram (SC), which former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar seeks to wrest back from BJPs Chhedi Paswan, female turnout was 51.65 per cent as against 56.88 per cent for male.
Female turnout was similarly lower than that of men in the remaining four seats Arrah, Jehanabad, Karakat and Buxar which went to polls on May 19. The only other seat besides these eight where the female turnout remained lower than that of male was Gaya (SC).
Mumbai North Lok Sabha seat with 167 votes saw the highest turnout of transgenders as the voters listed in "other" category continue to be low all across the country, according to the preliminary data in Election Commission's Voter turnout app.
In most of the constituencies, the number of votes polled by transgenders was nil or below 10 with exceptions in big cities.
Bangalore North had the second highest turnout in "other" segment with 105 votes followed by 72 in Kalyan, 71 in Puducherry, 64 in Tiruchirapalli and 55 in Chennai Central, according to the voters turn out figure till phase 6 of the Lok Sabha elections, according to the EC app.
Mumbai and Bengaluru constituencies otherwise saw low voter turnouts. The turnout in Bangalore North was only 54.66 per cent.
Among smaller cities where transgender turnout was in double digits include Nandyal (71) and Kadapa (68) in Andhra Pradesh, Bhopal (66) in Madhya Pradesh, Raipur (33) in Chhattisgarh, Anand (30) in Gujarat and Haridwar (22) in Uttarakhand.
Enrolling transgenders in the "other" category is a recent phenomenon but very few people have come out to register.
Only 38,325 voters are listed in the other category across the country. Karnataka alone has over 4,000 other voters while the number is over 1,800 in Maharashtra and 660 in Delhi.
According to the 2011 census, India's transgender population stands at 4.9 lakh.
Edited by mid-day online desk with inputs from Agencies
