Debutant voters in Karnatata show 20% gender gap

BANGALORE: As the Lok Sabha polls loom large, the young female population across India is not too enthused to vote, it appears. While first time male electors constituted 58.6 per cent in India, girls stood at 41.4 percent, showing a yawning 17.2 per cent gender gap.
In Karnataka, only 40 per cent of girls in the age group of 18-19 are registered as voters in Karnataka.Haryana has the least number of girls (28.3%) of voters in that age group. Nagaland bucks the trend though. The state has more girls (50.4%) than boys (49.6%) to form the highest number of debutant voters in the country.
Among southern states, Kerala has the highest percentage of girls (45.1) followed by Tamil Nadu (42.2). Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka have 40 and 40.1 per cent girls respectively, who chose to register themselves to exercise their franchise in the 2014 elections.
The data was released by the Election Commission of India, after its final compilation of voters in the country.
The gender gap among debutant voters in progressive Karnataka is close to 20 per cent, at 19.5%. The state has 59.6% first-time male voters and only 40.1% are female. The total number of first-time voters in the state is 8,04,786. “The low registration in Karnataka among girls could be largely due to migration. Often girls, who come here for jobs, do not find it necessary to register as voters as the state is not their home. Somewhere the process also makes it difficult for them to register’’ says Swati Ramanathan, co-founder of Janaagraha.
Among the 28 states and seven union territories, 21 states/UTs have a higher proportion of female electors in this age category than that of the national proportion of 41.4%.
In 10 states/UTs, the proportion of girls among newly eligible electors is less than 40%. What is disturbing is the wide gender gap in states like Haryana (34%), Chandigarh (27%) and Dadra & Nagar Haveli is 22%. “Like men, there is no engagement in politics for women. We need charismatic leaders to enthuse girls,’’ said Ramanathan.
In the southern states, the gender gap was the highest in Andhra Pradesh (19.9%) followed by Tamil Nadu (15.5). The difference between the boys and girls as first-time voters in Kerala was only 9.8 percent.
Most transgenders in Karnataka
Karnataka has the highest number of transgenders in the age group of 18-19 years as registered voters in the country. A whopping 2,589 persons have registered as eligible voters. Andhra Pradesh is in the second position with 429 persons in that category of voters while Bihar is in the third position with 230 persons. Interestingly, of the 35 states and union territories, 21 have zero registrations under the ‘Others’ category.
The total number of persons under the ‘Others’ category as registered and eligible voters across the country stood at 4,177.