Gujarat elections 2017: Gap between male, female electors’ growing

Call it an effect of the state’s constantly declining sex ratio. A reflection of women being left out of the electoral process or even a testimony to the large-scale migration happening to a state like Gujarat, but the gap between number of male and female electors have been widening since 1962.

Electors refer to the number of people eligible to vote, while voters refer to the number of people who actually voted in a given election.

Election Commission statistics for Gujarat show that the difference in the number of electors has been widening for the last four decades. This coincides with a drop in sex ratio for Gujarat for the same period.

Sex ratio refers to the number of women per 1000 males.

In the year 1962, the state had 49.83 lakh male electors against 45.52 lakh female electors, a difference of 4.3 lakh. The female sex ratio of Gujarat in 1961 was 946 females per 1000 male. In the year 2012, Gujarat had 199.50 male electors against 181.49 female electors – a difference of 18.01 lakh. The female sex ratio of Gujarat in 1991 was 934. The sex ratio in the 0 to 6 years category in 1991 was 921, which is quite …read more