By Vikas Vaidya :
The voting percentage of women in Assembly polls- 2024 in Nagpur district increased by 5.57% as compared to the elections held in 2019. The increased voting of women is more in urban constituencies than in rural. In Nagpur city, the rise is 7.97% while in rural the rise is 2.75%. There is a rise in male voters in city by 4.8% and by 1.7% in rural area. The rise in voting by women is being attributed to ‘Ladki Bahin Yojana.’ Earlier, the women voters’ turnout was never so impressive. Women always remained on top as far as registering of voters was concerned, but the same was not the case with their turnout for voting.
Total 21,34,921 male voters had registered in 2019 while 20,36,399 had exercised their franchise. Of the total 20,36,399 female voters,11,125,882 had exercised their franchise. Their total voting percentage was 59.48% while the female voting percentage was 54.80%. In 2024, the male voters registered were 11,79,814 in Nagpur city while in district the number was 10,84,076. The voting per centage in rual comes of male 57.99% and of rual is is 68.12%. In city 6,84,233 men turned up and while in rural this number was 7,38,443. The women
voters in Nagpur city were 12,02,956 and in district the number was 10,58,859.
The women who turned up for casting their votes were 6,74,618 in Nagpur city while in Nagpur rural 6,90,873 turned up at polling stations.
The percentage of women voters in city is 56.08% while in rural it is 65.25%.
In 2019 in Nagpur rural there were 10,15,550 male voters of which 6,74,500 voters exercised their franchise. In city against 11,19,371 male voters, 6,74,500 turned up to polling station.
The percentage of men cast their votes stood at 66.42% in Nagpur rural while in city it is 53.19%. Of the registered 9,46,498 women voters in rural, 5,91,527 cast their votes. In Nagpur city 10,89,901 women voters registered themselves, of those 5,24,355 exercised their franchise.
The voting percentage of womenfolk in the city was 48.11% while in rural it was 62.50%.
District administration takes special efforts
The administration under District Collector Dr Vipin Itankar worked hard to make people especially women come out and cast their votes. “We organised several programme for voters’ awareness in small pockets. We conducted programme in Bachatgat, colleges. We chose various women groups, organisations where we could explain them the importance of voting and their presence. When a woman of any house goes for voting, the complete family follows her,” pointed out Dr Itankar.