Maharashtra elections 2024: Male, female vote share increase similar across state

People queue up to cast their vote at in Juhu. Pic/Anurag Ahire

A total of 46.29 lakh more female votes were cast in the 2024 Assembly elections as compared to the election in 2019. Similarly, 45.26 lakh more male votes were cast in this year's elections. Though the actual number of female voters is slightly higher, voting by male voters increased by 8 percentage points from 58.5 per cent to 66.8 per cent. There was hardly a 1 percentage point increase in female voters, from 64.2 per cent in 2019 to 65.2 per cent this year.

In 2019, there were a total of 4.93 crore registered male voters. Over the last five years, there has been an increase of 7.15 lakh registered male voters. During the same period, female voters increased by around 64 lakh, from 4.05 crore to 4.69 crore. This election, the overall voting percentage rose by 5 percentage points across the state. Overall, the state witnessed a surge of 89.26 lakh votes in the 2024 Assembly elections. A total of 6.4 crore votes were cast on November 20, which surpassed the 2019 voter turnout of 5.51 crore votes with a 17.28 per cent increase. The figures include votes cast by members of the transgender community.

The highest male and female voting was observed in the Chinchwad constituency, with 1,83,724 female votes and 2,03,783 male votes. Meanwhile, the lowest number of female votes was cast in the Colaba constituency with only 54,058 votes and the lowest male votes were seen in Mumbadevi constituency, with 63,568 votes. The 275-Karvir Assembly constituency in Kolhapur recorded the highest voter turnout at 84.96 per cent, while 187-Colaba Assembly constituency witnessed the lowest voter turnout at 44.44 per cent.

M R Parkar, joint chief election officer, Maharashtra, attributed the increase in voting to multiple factors including awareness and natural factors. "There are multiple factors which helped increase the voter turnout in the state. Of these, a major factor is voter awareness activities conducted by SVEEP (Systematic Voters' Education and Electoral Participation) throughout the state. Apart from this, another major factor affecting the voter turnout was the day the election was held. Since it was in between weekdays, this made it almost impossible for anyone to go on a long vacation," Parkar told mid-day.

According to Parkar, the rationalisation of polling booths also played a crucial role. "Additionally, queue management in the entire state was improved, with every polling station having multiple facilities for voters that encouraged the polling process."