SILCHAR, April 19 - Amidst constant efforts by the Election Commission of India to increase the voter turnout for the Lok Sabha election, Barak Valley has seen spontaneous participation of female voters who have outnumbered the males handsomely.
According to latest data received for the Karimganj Parliamentary constituency which includes three assembly constituencies of Hailakandi district as well having 14 candidates in the fray, out of 13,38, 005 voters, as many as 9,78,699 voters voted on April 18 accounting for 73.15 poll percentage.
Out of the total voters, 5,01,982 (78.27 per cent) were female voters (including third gender) while 4,76,717 ( 68.43 per cent) were male voters. Interestingly, while there were 18 voters in the Third Gender category including 10 from the three constituencies of Hailakandi, no votes were cast as per the data received from official sources.
On the other hand, latest reports received from the District Election Office for the Silchar Parliamentary seat which had 13 candidates, suggests that out of 11,91,289 voters as many as 9,44,136 voters have exercised their franchise across all the polling stations registering a poll percentage of 79.25 percent as compared to 75.45 in 2014 Lok Sabha election. Here, 4,59,088 female voters (79.52 per cent) casted their votes while the number of male voters is recorded at 4,85,047(79.01 percent). Of the 78 voters from the Third Gender category, two votes were casted, one each at Borkhola and Silchar LACs.
The Cachar district administration under Deputy Commissioner Laya Madduri reached out to young voters with appeals by organising debates, posters and caption contests in which females and youngsters took active participation.
