If national and local issues between two Lok Sabha elections brought women’s issues into sharper focus, the events in the run up to the polls suggested that women here have arrived.
Now it is clear that they have gone a step ahead: on April 17, more women got inked in Dakshina Kannada than male voters.
The constituency, dominated by women by population (as per projected figures for 2014, it has 1,019 women for every 1000 men), witnessed steady rise in the registration of women as voters. Though they were a minority since 1971, the big change happened in 1990 when their share in the registered voters crossed the halfway mark and has never come down thereafter. In the latest polls, they outnumbered men by around 16,900.
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The election for the 16 Lok Sabha witnessed more women officials staffing the polling booths. Of the 8,101 personnel, 4,700 were women, accounting for 58 per cent of total poll force. In addition, of the total 2,027 teams formed, there were 244 all-women teams.
On April 17 6.12 lakh women got their left thumb inked while the figure for men was 5.96 lakh, that is, 16,120 more women. When compared with the fact that the number by which women outnumber men as voters (16, 858), it clear that women were more enthusiastic about the democratic process.