EC releases final electoral roll, poll dates likely to be announced by mid-February

Kolkata: The final electoral roll for the 2021 Assembly elections published by the Election Commission on Friday shows an addition of 20,45,593 people out of which the percentage of women voters has not only crossed the 49 per cent-mark but also witnessed an upswing in the gender ratio that has gone up from 958 in 2020 to 961. Interestingly, there has been a dip in the percentage of first-time voters between the age group of 18 and 19 years.

Assembly election dates in Bengal are likely to be announced in mid-February with the Commission wanting to complete the entire poll process by end of April.

The final electoral roll published by the Commission shows that the percentage of women voters in the state is 49.01. West Bengal is the fourth major state behind Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh as far as women participation in the electoral process is concerned. Kerala with 51.4 per cent women participation is at the top followed by Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh with 50.5 and 50.4 per cent women electorates respectively.

The gender ratio that was 958 females against 1,000 male electors in 2020 has also advanced to 961. Experts believe that female participation in the elections might prove to be a major factor in the forthcoming polls.

The total number of electors according to the final electoral roll is 732,949,80 with the total number of male electors being 373,663,06 and female electors being 359,270,84. There are 1,430 third gender voters and 112,642 service electors in the state.

The final voters' list has witnessed an addition of 20,45,593, deletion of 5,99,921 and correction of 1,45,672 which has contributed to an increase of 2.01 per cent compared to the draft roll published in November 2020.

The number of teen voters — the first-time voters between the age group of 18 and 19 years has come down to 2.68 per cent for the first time in the last three years. In March last year, there was a 3.13 per cent increase in the number of teen voters.

In 2018, the count of teen voters was 2.94 per cent that rose to 2.96 per cent in 2019. It further increased to 3.13 per cent in 2020. But this time, it has dropped to 2.68 per cent which is even below 2018.