Kolkata: The SIR slash notwithstanding, woman voters have outnumbered men in 23 out of the 142 Assembly segments going to polls on Wednesday. Topping the list is Jadavpur, which now has 11,759 more women voters than men. Panihati, where the BJP has fielded the RG Kar victim’s mother as its candidate — also has more women voters than men.The 23 assembly segments are primarily in and around Kolkata and Salt Lake. Second to Jadavpur is Behala West, with 1.37 lakh women and 1.28 lakh men. Tollygunge, Behala East, Dum Dum, Bidhannagar, Rajarhat Gopalpur, Rashbehari, Baranagar and Burdwan South round off the top 10 assembly segments with the highest female-to-male voter surplus. Barasat, with 373 more women voters, and Hooghly’s Champdani, with 122, are at the end of the 23-segment list.The pattern of more female electorate is also visible in Bidhannagar (98,891 male; 1,04,979 female), Rashbehari (76,263 male; 82,137 female), Baranagar (90,690 male; 95,847 female) and Kasba (1,31,451 male and 1,34,158 female).In the first phase of the election, 18 assembly segments had more women voting than men. The highest was in Kurseong, where 87,002 women and 83,405 men voted. In Sitalkuchi (Cooch Behar), 1.41 lakh women voted compared to 1.37 lakh men, in Darjeeling, 86,211 women voted compared to 82,914 men and in Kalimpong, 73,813 women voted compared to 70,810 men. The other two Phase 1 segments, where more women voted than men, were Karandighi (North Dinajpur) and Phansidewa (Darjeeling district).TOI had reported that despite the SIR reducing the voter gender ratio to 950 across the 16 districts that voted on April 23, a greater percentage of women turned up at booths, compared to men. EC data released on Thursday indicated that female voter turnout reached 92.7% across 152 assembly segments and the male count 91%. The EC has not released the final figures yet.
