The invisible gap in Bengaluru’s electoral division

Bengaluru: The numbers, at first glance, look almost reassuring. Bengaluru's revised electoral rolls for 2026, released on March 9, show more than 88.9 lakh electors across the city's five corporation limits. Of these, nearly 45.7 lakh are men and 43.2 lakh women.That is a gap of roughly 2.5 lakh electors, or just 2.8 percentage points (51.4% men, 48.6% women) — a figure close enough to parity to invite optimism about the state of female elector registration in one of India's largest cities.But aggregated figures are a blunt instrument. They compress enormous variation — across neighbourhoods, across communities, across decades of urban change — into a single, deceptively comfortable ratio. When Bengaluru's elector data is disaggregated to the ward level, a strikingly different picture emerges. Of 369 wards across the city, men outnumber women electors in 324, or 87.8%. Women hold a majority in 45 wards — just one in eight. This is not a marginal imbalance. It is a structural pattern that repeats, with varying intensity, across every corporation of the city.Who votes in Bengaluru?■ Total electors: 88.9 lakh■ Male electors: 45.7 lakh | 51.4%■ Female electors: 43.2 lakh | 48.6%■ Others: 1,635■ Total wards: 369■ Male-majority wards: 324 | 87.8%■ Female-majority wards: 45 | 12.2%5 corporations, 1 patternBreaking the data down by corporation zone reveals that the male dominance of ward-level elector rolls is not confined to any one part of the city. It is a city-wide phenomenon — though the degree, and the character of the gap, varies meaningfully between zones:Bengaluru Central■ Its overall split — 7.2L male to 6.9L — works out to roughly 51:49■ Of its 63 wards, 10 are female majorities — a share of 15.9%, the second highest in the city■ Jayamahal, Ambedkar Nagar, Swatantra Palya, and Rayapuram are among the wards where women's registration outpaces men'sBengaluru North■ Its overall split is also nearly 51:49 — 9.9L male to 9.6L female■ Of its 72 wards, 17 are female majorities — a 23.6% share, the highest of any corporation ■ Nearly 1 in 4 wards leans female. Many of these — Kalyan Nagar, HRBR Layout, Jaya Chamarajendra Nagar, Sagayapuram, Doddanna Nagar — are mid-density residential areas with relatively stable populations■ Sagayapuram is the single ward in the entire city with the largest female surplus in absolute terms: women outnumber men by 1,103 — 12,501 to 11,398Bengaluru South■ Its overall split is nearly 52:48 — 9L male to 8.4L female■ Of its 72 wards, 7 are female majorities — only a 9.7% share■ The city's most extreme single-ward gender gap is also found here: in Subramanyapura, which has the largest total electorate in the entire dataset at 54,026 electors, records 27,895 male electors and 26,130 female — a surplus of 1,765. The size of that ward's electorate means that this single gap alone has an outsized effect on the citywide aggregateBengaluru East■ The most striking outlier in the dataset. Covering the technology employment corridor from KR Pura through Whitefield, Marathahalli, Varthur, and Bellandur, it records an overall split of 53:47 — the widest city-level gender gap of any zone■ More telling still: Of its 50 wards, only 1 has female majority (Ramamurthynagar) and by a margin of just 17 — 11,153 female to 11,136 male■ That figure is the starkest finding in the entire electoral roll. It points to a dynamic that is almost certainly connected to the nature of employment in the East: male-dominated tech and construction workforces, migrant workers who register at their city residence while female family members may remain registered in home districts, and newer residential colonies that have not yet achieved the community density needed for comprehensive household enrolment■ Whitefield shows a gap of 1,623 — 15,588 male to 13,965 femaleBengaluru West■ The city's largest corporation by both ward count and elector base: 112 wards, 27.3L electors, and a raw gender gap of 66,835 — the largest in absolute terms of any zone. ■ Its overall split is 51:49, and only 10 of 112 wards show female majorities — a share of 8.9%.■ Lakshmi Devi Nagar, Malleswaram, Rajamahal, Kodandarampura, Subramanyanagar, Gayathri Nagar, Kuvempu ward, Dayanand Nagar, Bandi Reddy Circle ward, and Rama Mandira. These are mostly settled, historically dense areas of northwest Bengaluru where women's registration is stronger■ West also contains some of the city's most notable statistical outliers. Ward 90, Krishnadevaraya, registers 132 electors in the ‘Others' category — the highest in the entire GBA dataset, and a figure that deserves closer demographic attention