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Journalism of Courage
Madhya Pradesh, where Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is seeking a fifth term in power later this year, has seen a steady increase in the turnout of women voters over the decades. It has climbed from 29.01% in 1962 to a record 74.01% in 2018.
Chouhan, who is popularly referred to as “Mama (maternal uncle)”, on Sunday raised the monthly financial aid given to women under the Ladli Behna scheme from Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,250 and announced 35% reservation for women in government jobs, including the police. He said, “Women will get cooking gas at Rs 450 in the holy month of Sawan. Later, a permanent system will be evolved in this regard. I have also transferred Rs 250 into the accounts of 1.25 crore women so that they can celebrate Rakhi well. The rest of the Rs 1,000 (under the Ladli Behna Yojana) will be credited in September.”
The Madhya Pradesh CM, who is the state’s longest-serving chief minister, first took charge in 2005. He was bestowed with the “Mama” moniker in 2007 after he launched the Ladli Laxmi Yojana, which entitles a girl child to receive financial aid from the government. Subsequently, the Chouhan government has focused on schemes for women and girls such as Mukhyamantri Ladli Lakshmi Yojana and Mukhyamantri Kanya Vivah and Nikah Yojana.
An analysis of Assembly election data of 1962, the earliest year for which figures are available, shows that only 29.07% of women voters exercised their franchise that year. It jumped to 41.8% in 1967 and rose to 44.37% in 1972. Fewer women voted in the following two Assembly elections — 43.22% in 1977 and 39.39% in 1980. The numbers rose again in 1985 as 41.4% of women electors voted. Since then, it has increased steadily. The turnout figure for women voters crossed the 50% mark in 1998, two years before the state was split and Chhattisgarh was formed, with the turnout at 53.53%. It was 62.14% in 2003, 65.91% in 2008, 70.09% in 2013, and a record 74.01% in 2018.
With more and more women exercising their franchise, the gender gap in voter turnout has fallen from 30.61 percentage points in 1962 to 1.83 percentage points in 2018. The state’s overall poll percentage has also increased from 44.52% in 1962 to 74.97% in 2018, the highest ever.
For the party, consolidating to the maximum among women voters is crucial if it has to push up its Assembly election vote share. As noted in last week’s column, an analysis of MP Assembly elections between 1980, when the BJP was established, and 2018 shows that the BJP’s vote share in seats it has contested has remained between 31.38% and 46.5%.
However, an increase in women voters has not translated into more women legislators. The number of women MLAs has remained low, from zero in the 1972 Assembly polls to 30 (13.04% of the House) in 2013. The proportion of women MLAs declined to 9.13% (21) in 2018.
The increase in women voters has also been registered in Chhattisgarh, the state created after Madhya Pradesh was bifurcated in 2000. The data shows that women voter turnout in Chhattisgarh, which goes to polls later this year along with Madhya Pradesh, increased from 67.9% in 2003 to 69.2% in 2008 to 77.32% in 2013 before declining marginally to 76.33% in 2018.
