She is the queen of the heart and hearth. She has a voice that wants to be heard as well. The number of registered women voters is growing, slowly but surely. Where there were once just 715 listed female voters for every 1,000 male voters in the 1960s, today there are 803. And they are voting in huge numbers, often more than the men.
One of the chief reasons for this declaration of semi-independence by women is the growth of the electronic media. Television has allowed women to access information in a way they never could earlier. Consequently, they no longer have to depend on their menfolk to make choices.
Women are showing up on the electoral landscape as a statistic that can no longer be ignored. They are divided on multiple levels: rural-urban, upper caste-lower caste, educated-illiterate, rich-poor, etc.
The latest data from the Election Commission reveals that just 41% of the new voters registered on the rolls are women. It is also estimated that as many as 65 million women voters are missing from electoral rolls across the country. It could be sheer sloppiness. Or it could be related to orthodox beliefs about the position of unmarried women in families and their right to property.
For every 5 women who vote for BJP, 2 vote for other parties. Imagine the ratio if these missing women were on the electoral rolls?
There is an urgent need for engagement this electorate in the upcoming 2016 Assembly Elections in Bengal. They are the most impacted from the debacle of the TMC - safety, price rise and so on.
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