Bengal elector-population ratio jumps

File photo of the voters from Singur in Hooghly district flash their voter ID card at a polling booth. Photo: Arunangsu Roy Chowdhury

West Bengal has surpassed rest of country in elector-population ratio. The updated voter list for the year 2016 published by the Election Commission of India, earlier this week points that the elector-population ratio stands at 0.68.

Five more voters

The same ratio in 2011, when the State went to Assembly polls, was 0.63. Thus when compared to the 2011 Assembly polls, five more voters in a population of every 100 citizens will be eligible to cast their votes when the State goes to polls in 2016.

“Only a few years ago say in 2009- 2010 the elector- population ration in the State was 0.56,” Saibal Barman, Joint Chief Electoral Officer, West Bengal told The Hindu . Mr Barman said that with efforts West Bengal has surpassed the national average where the elector- population ratio stands at 0.66.

Biswnath Chakraborty, professor of Political Science at Rabindra Bharati University, who is also a psephologist pointed out that one of the reason why such a high elector -population ratio has been achieved is because of good representation of voters who are in the age group of 18-19 years. The percentage of voters in this category comprises of 3.17 percent of the overall voter list.

In terms of absolute number the new or first time voters in the electoral rolls stands at 20. 40 lakhs. “More than the new voters of the cities are the new voters from the rural areas who have featured prominently in the updated voter list,” he added

Female voters

Another rise for the high elector-population ratio is because of addition of more female voters in the electoral rolls.

The final electoral roll for 2016 with 6.55 crore voters has 3.39 crore male and 3.16 crore female voters. The gender ratio of electors stands at 933 women for 100 male voters. Officials of the ECI said that the number of female voters in 2012 was 905 for every 1,000 male voters. The figures give indicate that during the upcoming Assembly polls elections more female voters and new electorate will cast their vote and decide the fate of the candidates contesting polls in the State.