High female turnout helps Grand Alliance script win in Bihar

The Nitish Kumar-led Grand Alliance netted 80% of the constituencies where the voting percentage of women was higher than that of men. Its success rate dropped strikingly to about 48% in others segments, election data show.

Updated on: Nov 9, 2015, 18:35:25 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, Patna

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The Nitish Kumar-led Grand Alliance netted 80% of the constituencies where the voting percentage of women was higher than that of men. Its success rate dropped strikingly to about 48% in others segments, election data show.

Supporters of Congress, RJD and JD(U) celebrate the Grand Alliance’s victory in Bihar assembly elections in Ranchi on Sunday. (PTI Photo)

The polls saw more women coming out to vote compared to last year’s Lok Sabha election and the 2010 assembly polls, with the difference between the two gender groups about four percentage points— 60.57% women and 56.5% men. Traditionally, the percentage of women voting is about two percentage points higher primarily because thousands of men migrate from Bihar every year seeking work.

A scrutiny of the Election Commission data on voting percentage in each constituency and counting trends showed a higher female turnout helped the Grand Alliance. Of the 203 assembly segments where voters comprised more women than men, the alliance won about 160. Of the remaining 40, it bagged 18.

The strike rate of the alliance was higher in constituencies where the difference was more significant. It won 87 of the 98 assembly seats where the gap in numbers between women and men who came out to vote was more than 10 percentage points.

Further analysis of the data showed the Nitish Kumar-led coalition won all the 10 constituencies where women outnumbered men by the widest margin in terms of turnout.

In comparison, the BJP won four of the 10 constituencies where male turnout was the highest.

Poll analysts said the Grand Alliance campaign strategy was more targeted towards women as it talked about providing better schools, health facilities, reliable electricity supply and road connectivity.

“Also, the positive image of Nitish Kumar found resonance with female voters,” said an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader who was part of the Grand Alliance’s campaign strategy.

The poll results also pointed to growing independence of women in the state when it comes to deciding their pick which had massive bearing on the outcome.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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