Himachal Assembly polls | Women voters surpass men in 42 segments, can make difference in 22

The BJP and the Congress claimed that they had been able to woo the women electorate and ensured victory

The focus on women, who make up 49.5% of total voters in Himachal Pradesh, and the announcement of freebies by major parties are seen as the contributing factors behind their higher turnout in the recent Assembly elections.

According to constituency-wise data procured from the election department, votes polled by women exceeded that of men by 4.4 percentage points.

Himachal witnessed a record 75.6% turnout for the Assembly polls on November 12. The turnout of women in 42 of the State's 68 constituencies was more than men, the data showed.

In seven constituencies, women voters outnumbered men by more than 5,000. The difference was highest in Joginder Nagar at 8,189. In Sulah, the difference was 6,276, in Jaisinghpur 6,048, Badsar 6,035, Bhoranj 5,882, Nadaun 5,536 and Sujanpur 5,613.

In 11 seats -- Baijnath (4,962), Jwalamukhi (4,856), Jwali (4,477), Dharampur (3,985), Dehra (3,923), Fatehpur (3,638), Hamirpur (3,520), Nagrota (3,489), Palampur (3,381) and Shahpur (3,334) -- the number of women exercising their franchise exceeded that of men by 3,000 to 5,000 votes.

According to the data, 72.4 per cent of 2,788,925 (2,019,182) men exercised their franchise, while 76.8 per cent women (2,101,483) voted. With 2,737,845 eligible women voters, their total votes surpassed that of men by 82,301.

Of the total 412 candidates in the fray, 24 are women.