NEW DELHI: Women electors now outnumber their male counterparts across 13 states and a Union Territory, as per the final electoral rolls published so far with January 1, 2025, as the reference date. This is an improvement over last year, when the updated rolls with January 1, 2024, as the reference date had shown women electors in higher numbers than men across a dozen states and Union Territories.
Countrywide, total women electors as per the freshly updated electoral roll are still 2.33 crore less than the male electorate. Of the over 99-crore-strong Indian electorate, nearly 50.7 crore are men and 48.3 crore (48.8%), women. Third gender electors total 48,870, with states like Tamil Nadu accounting for their highest numbers (9,161), followed by Maharashtra (6,145), UP (6,089) and Karnataka (5,095).
The new additions this year to the list of states/UTs where the absolute number of women electors exceeds the male electorate are Assam, Karnataka and Nagaland. However, the trend seems to have been reversed in Chandigarh where the male electors have overtaken women again this year in terms of absolute numbers.
The data for Chandigarh and Nagaland is provisional as their final electoral roll with January 1, 2025 as the cutoff date has either just been published or is due to be published in the next couple of days.
Among the 13 states and UT where the women electorate has overtaken male electorate in absolute numbers as per the electoral rolls published this year, are Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Kerala, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Puducherry and Telangana. As per the nationwide electoral roll published early last year, the states with women electors in the lead were Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Kerala, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and Telangana.
