Bengaluru: Karnataka’s electoral rolls have crossed a historic gender threshold, with women outnumbering men for the first time in the state’s electoral history, according to the latest figures released by the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Karnataka.The electoral roll, as of Oct 16, lists 2.28 crore women against 2.25 crore men — a difference of nearly 3.7 lakh.Bengaluru: Karnataka’s electoral rolls have crossed a historic gender threshold, with women outnumbering men for the first time in the state’s electoral history, according to the latest figures released by the chief electoral officer (CEO) of Karnataka. The electoral roll, as of Oct 16, lists 2.28 crore women against 2.25 crore men — a difference of nearly 3.7 lakh.The state has a total of 4.5 crore electors, including 2,860 third-gender voters. The milestone comes as the special intensive revision (SIR) enters its final stage, with the deadline for disposal of claims and objections set for Oct 22 and publication of the final electoral roll scheduled for Oct 27.An analysis of historical Election Commission of India (ECI) data for Karnataka assembly election years shows that men outnumbered women in every year for which a separate gender-wise breakup was available, from 1962 through 2023. The 1957 report provided the total electorate but did not give separate male and female numbers, making 1962 the earliest year in the available series for which a comparison could be made.Prof CM Lakshmana of the Population Research Centre at Institute for Social and Economic Change said the trend was surprising. “Based on Census data, the adult male-female ratio in recent years is nearly equal, but men outnumber women. So it is surprising to find more female electors than male. It would be difficult to make assessments without granular data,” he said.The figures show that the shift is not uniform across the state. Women outnumber men in 25 of 34 districts listed in the release, while men remain ahead in nine. The largest female lead is in Mysuru, where women outnumber men by 49,416, followed by BBMP North, with a lead of 48,394. In contrast, men outnumber women by 42,269 in Bidar and 30,353 in Vijayapura. CEO Anbu Kumar V said the authorities had made efforts to ensure eligible voters could enrol. “We’ve made every effort to ensure no eligible voter misses an opportunity to get onto the rolls. We got 10 lakh new Form 6 applications, out of which more than 7.8 lakh were before Sept 23. All those applications need to be cleared; once all the applications are cleared, we’ll get a clear picture,” he said.As of Oct 16, hearings had been completed in 43,63,459 of the 43,82,824 notices generated and delivered across Karnataka — 99.6% of the total. Hearings were pending in 19,365 cases. Gulbarga had the largest number of pending hearings, at 8,224, with 92.21% completed. Bengaluru Urban had 1,016 pending hearings and Belgaum 1,495.Between June 16 and Oct 15, the CEO’s office received as many as 24,46,803 forms related to electoral roll claims, objections and updates. These included 10,07,392 Form 6 applications, 4,777 Form 6A applications, 1,55,109 Form 7 applications, and 12,79,525 Form 8 applications.The final roll, due on Oct 27, will provide the next picture of Karnataka’s electorate after the claims-and-objections process is completed.
