In India, Women Are A Distinct And Independent Vote Bank: Exclusive Extract from 'THE VERDICT' by Prannoy Roy

To emphasise how important the male vote is to the NDA: if no women, only men had voted in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the NDA would have won by an enormous landslide with 376 seats. However, if no men, only women had voted, the NDA would have won 265 seats—which would have been seven seats short of the majority mark.

By Prannoy Roy, Dorab R. Sopariwala

March 18, 2019

Photograph by Getty Images

India’s pioneering psephologists Dr Prannoy Roy and Dorab R. Sopariwala provide some revelations in their latest book, The Verdict, and say that women might outvote men in 2019 despite millions being disenfranchised.

Outlook brings you Exclusive Extracts:

The Rise of Women Voters

In 1962, women’s turnout was 15 per cent lower than men’s turnout; but by 2014, women’s turnout had almost reached parity with men, short by only 1.5 per cent. This represents a remarkable, if belated, turnaround over the last half-century.

As an aside, this very strong statement by women on ensuring a greater say in the democratic process in India almost parallels the significant finding by Imperial College, London, that the height of women in India has grown significantly more than that of men: an average Indian woman’s height has gone up by 4.9 cm as against an increase of 2.9 cm in an average Indian man’s height over the past century. Of course, women are...