Do women prefer the BJP/NDA over other parties?

Analysis of women voters in Indian elections challenges the narrative of overwhelming BJP support, revealing diverse political preferences nationwide.

The role of women voters in Indian elections has become a matter of discussion and analysis over the past decade. A popular narrative suggests that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has effectively garnered the support of women voters. Many credit this achievement to various women-centric welfare schemes launched by the Narendra Modi-led government. Among several policy initiatives, the Ujjwala scheme, which provides free cooking gas connections to women from low-income households, is considered a game-changer. In prevailing discussions, it is believed that these schemes have significantly improved the lives of Indian women, and in return, they have started favouring the BJP/National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidates during elections.

However, the outcomes of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections present a more complex picture. The election results, especially the performance of high-profile women candidates of the BJP, suggest that the narrative of overwhelming female support for the BJP may not be as definite as it appears. Of the 69 women contesting on BJP tickets, only 31 were elected to the 18th Lok Sabha, with several prominent candidates losing their seats in significant battles. Smriti Irani, the former Minister of Women and Child Development, had won the high-profile Amethi seat in 2019, defeating Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. During the 2024 election, however, she lost the seat to Congress leader Kishori Lal Sharma by a margin of 1,67,196 votes. Similarly, Dr. Bharti Pravin Pawar, the former Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, who contested from the Dindori seat (Scheduled Tribe reserved seat) in Maharashtra, lost to Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar)’s Bhaskar Murlidhar Bhagare by 1,13,199 votes. Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Maneka Gandhi, and Navneet Rana and others also suffered defeat, raising questions about whether the BJP/NDA had lost its hold on the women electorate.

This trend of prominent BJP women candidates losing elections leads to a critical examination of the widely held belief that women voters have predominantly supported the BJP/NDA in recent elections. Data from the Lokniti-CSDS post-poll surveys challenge the notion of a uniform women vote for the BJP/NDA over the past three Lok Sabha elections (2014-2024). The surveys reveal that women voters, like their male counterparts, are divided between various political parties, with no significant advantage for the BJP/NDA among women voters nationally.

Table 1 shows how women voters have voted for the BJP/NDA in the past three general elections 

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As shown in Table 1, there has been a modest increase in the share of women voting for the NDA, from 37% in 2014 to 43% in 2024. However, this increase is not very different from the share among male voters. 

Table 2 shows how women voters have voted for the UPA/INDIA bloc in the past three general elections