When a party posts a landslide victory, its vote among most social sections also ordinarily records an increase. Yet, in BJP’s victory in the Gujarat Assembly election recently, we can note an extra share of men voters.
The Lokniti-CSDS post-poll survey found that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the party that has been in power in the State for the past 27 years, saw a 3% gender disadvantage by receiving support from 51% of women respondents as against 54% of men. It also received marginally less support from women compared to its overall vote share.
Thus, a significant share of the BJP’s grand victory was contributed by male voters (Table 1). On the other hand, the Congress-NCP alliance received 3% more support among women than it did among men. Also, compared to its overall vote share, the alliance was supported by 2% more women. The new entrant, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), did not register any significant variation based on gender and the party was supported equally by men and women.
Improved figures
However, in comparison to 2017, the performance of the BJP has improved significantly among male voters, with the party registering a rise of 6% in 2022.
Further, the Congress-NCP alliance has seen a sharp decline since the 2017 Gujarat Assembly Elections, in terms of support from both male and female voters, with a decline of 17% and 12%, respectively.
In the 2022 Gujarat elections, all parties sought to win women voters with women’s safety becoming a common talking point across manifestos. While the Congress and the AAP focused on rising inflation which affects women’s household expenses, the BJP reached out to 2,37,51,738 women voters of the State through its Mahila Morcha by organising ‘Samvad Sankalp’ and ‘Satyanarayan Kathas’ across the constituencies.
(Aaliyia Malik and Nishtha Gupta are researchers at Lokniti-CSDS)
