Women outnumber men in turnout despite fewer registrations than men after SIR cuts in Bihar

Preliminary turnout data released from the Bihar elections by the Election Commission of India reveals that at least 4,34,000 more women than men turned out to vote in the two phases. In percentage terms, the turnout among women was 71.6% while that for men was 62.8%.

Again it is to be noted that this data is provisional, does not include service and postal ballot voters and also does not include transgender voters. These numbers are subject to some amount of change once more data pours in from across polling booths in the State.

Yet a much higher number of women turning out to vote is remarkable considering the fact that in the final electorate in the rolls prepared by the ECI following its Special Intensive Revision (SIR), there were 42.33 lakh fewer women than men in the rolls. The number of registered men was ~3.94 crores in comparison to ~3.51 crore registered women.

In other words, while men constituted 52.8% of the electorate (and women close to 47.2%), in terms of those who turned out to vote, men constituted just 49.6%, compared to 50.4% for women. This amounted to an absolute number difference of 4,34,145 votes in favour of women compared to men in the elections.

The overall turnout in the two phases was 66.91% according to the ECI’s provisional numbers, nearly a 10 percentage point jump from the figures registered in the 2020 elections (57.29%). Overall women turnout (71.6%) was the highest ever in Bihar’s Assembly elections (in both the united and later bifurcated State).

This gender gap in turnout could be partially explained by Bihar’s high out-migration patterns, with males seeking work being the largest component of out-migrants. The SIR was supposed to include only those electors who were ordinarily resident in the State and in the process, should have excluded permanent migrants.

The SIR conducted in Bihar resulted in a significantly higher exclusion among women with the gender ratio in the final electoral rolls falling from 907 female voters to every 1000 male voters in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections to 892 in the final SIR rolls.

In terms of gender ratios, among registered electors, it was 892 females for every 1000 males in the two phases of the 2025 elections, but in terms of voters who actually turned up, it went up to 1017.55 females for every 1000 males. Bihar registered a similar pattern in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections - while the gender ratio among registered electors was just 907 females to every 1000 males, the gender ratio among voters who turned out was 1017.5 females to every 1000 males.

But the final numbers from the SIR, with more exclusions among women than men suggested a paradox, which has not been clearly explained by the ECI so far.

The fact that women turnout has remained substantially higher than that of men, despite lower gender ratios in the electorate, is a phenomenon that was unique only to Bihar and Jharkhand and to a lower extent in Himachal Pradesh  in the Lok Sabha elections.

This phenomenon has remained intact despite higher deletions of women electors in the final SIR in Bihar, with a bulk of them being removed for the “Permanently Shifted” reason, especially among the 18-29 years age category, according to an analysis by The Hindu after the draft SIR was prepared.

It must be noted that one of the main poll issues in Bihar centered around the disbursal of Rs 10,000 to women under the Mukhyamanthiri Mahila Rozgar Yojana by the Nitish Kumar led NDA government.

Granular figures of gender-wise turnout across constituencies has not yet been made available by the ECI.