In Phase 1 of J&K Polling, Women Voters Outnumbered Men in Six Assemblies

A total of 24 out of 90 assembly seats in Jammu and Kashmir went for polls on Wednesday and in at least six of these, women voters outnumbered men. The data, issued by the Election Commission of India, shows that of these six seats, five were from Jammu division while one, Kokernag, was from Kahsmir.

The six seats where women outnumbered men in voter turnout were — Bhadarwah, Doda, Doda West, Inderwal, Kishtwar, and Kokernag.

As per EC, across the 24 assemblies, 61.38 per cent voter turnout was registered. The average turnout of men was 63.75 per cent against women’s 58.96 per cent. Overall, male voters outnumbered women by about five percentage points.

The ECI also said it was informed by the Chief Electoral Officer of the UT that all polling parties have returned safely.

Inderwal and Padder-Nagseni — both from the Jammu region — reported the highest voter turnout of more than 80 per cent. This means of every 100 voters in the assembly, on an average 80 stepped out to exercise their franchise.

On the other hand, there were five assemblies where the turnout was less than 50 per cent and all these were from the Kashmir region — Rajpora, Tral, Pampore, Anantnag and Anantnag West. Tral (43.56 per cent) was the seat with the lowest voter turnout across the 24 assemblies.

A total of 23.27 lakh voters were eligible out of 88 lakh total voters in the UT. For the first phase, there were 11.76 lakh men and 11.51 lakh women eligible to vote.

There were just 60 registered transgender voters in the UT and on at least four seats — Dooru, Kokernag, Ramban, and Doda — the community had 100 per cent turnout. However, the overall turnout was just 40 per cent across the 24 seats.

Of the 219 candidates whose fate were sealed in the first phase, only nine were women. There were 3,276 polling stations for the first phase spread in seven districts — Pulwama, Shopian, Kulgam, Kishtwar, Anantnag, Ramban and Doda.

Jammu and Kashmir, an erstwhile state, is going for polls for the first time after 2014 and post the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019.

The 90-seat assembly will have three-phase elections. The second phase covering 26 seats will go for polls on September 25. The third and the biggest phase with 40 seats will vote on October 1 before counting of votes on October 8.