Govind D Belgaumkar/The Hindu

Mangalore, May 4: Besides clocking the highest voter turnout in the State, Dakshina Kannada has achieved another distinction.

Women voters have outnumbered men in exercising the franchise during the April 30 election to the Lok Sabha.

An analysis of the official poll figures shows that 9,536 more women went to the polling booths than men. The statistics show that 5,12,336 women cast their votes as against 5,02,800 men.

Dakshina Kannada constituency recorded 74.44 per cent polling as against the State’s average of 58.48 per cent (both phases put together).

Dakshina Kannada district has more women than men, and women outnumber men in the electoral rolls as well.

In the 2004 elections, however, men outnumbered women in exercising their franchise.

Reversal

In that election, 4,00,425 men voted as against 3,89,779 women in the constituency, which was then called Mangalore constituency. This meant that 10,646 fewer women voted in the 2004 election.

In the electoral rolls, however, the situation was reverse — there were more women than men on the rolls.

In the April 30 election, 52.52 per cent of the voters were women in Moodbidri Assembly segment. In absolute numbers, 5,523 more women cast their votes than men. Mangalore City South witnessed 3,858 more women exercising their franchise than men, followed by Mangalore City North (2,498), Mangalore (2,036), and Bantwal (1,830).

Bantwal’s case is unique because in that segment more number of men are registered as voters than women, although more women turned out to vote on April 30. In other Assembly segments — Sullia, Puttur, and Belthangady — men outnumbered women.

However, the analysis revealed that men continued to be slightly ahead of women in terms of awareness about voting rights.

It showed that more men (74.78 per cent) voted for every 100 registered voters. The figure for women was 74.12 per cent.