Outnumbered in Mizoram rolls, men outdo women in voting

Though outnumbered by women in Mizoram's electoral lists for the past many decades, 1.07 per cent more men cast their votes than women in Thursday's Lok Sabha polls in the northeastern state, a top official said on Friday.

Besides the election to the lone Lok Sabha seat, the bypoll for the Aizawl West-1 Assembly seat was also held on Thursday. The bypoll was necessitated after Zoram People's Movement's (ZPM) legislator Lalduhoma vacated it to retain his Serchhip constituency.

According to Chief Electoral Officer Ashish Kundra, 63.08 per cent of the 7,87,777 electorate cast their votes for the lone Lok Sabha seat in Mizoram, bordering Myanmar and Bangladesh. "In all, 63.60 per cent male and 62.53 per cent female voters cast their votes," he said.

Kundra said that the state's 4,04,169 women voters again outnumbered its 3,83,602 men voters. There were six third gender voters.

This was also the first time that a woman -- Independent candidate Lalthlamuani -- joined the race with five others to represent Mizoram in the lower house of Parliament. The state has seen only two women Ministers in the past 32 years -- in 1987 and 2014.

The CEO said that young voters in the 18-40 years age group, who constitute around 64 per cent of the total 787,777 electorate, dominate Mizoram's electoral politics.

With a population of 1,091,014 (according to the 2011 census), Mizoram is a closely knit society with a Christian majority (87 per cent).

--IANS

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