As West Bengal recorded its highest-ever voter turnout in the just-concluded Assembly elections, the rising participation of women voters is among the major trends. Since 2011, women have turned out to vote in greater numbers than men across Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.This year, as per an Election Commission statement, the overall turnout in Bengal hit 92.47%, the highest ever in any Assembly or Lok Sabha election. Women’s turnout rose to 93.24%, while men’s turnout increased to 91.74%.Before the 2026 Assembly polls, the highest overall turnout was recorded in 2011 at 84.72%. That year, women had voted at a then-record 84.45%, while men’s turnout stood at 84.22%. Notably, the 2011 Assembly elections marked the end of 34 years of Left rule with the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) coming to power for the first time in Bengal.However, the 2014 Lok Sabha polls marked the only election since 2011 when women’s turnout dipped below that of men in Bengal. While the overall turnout was 82.22% in Bengal, women’s turnout was 81.96% and men’s was 82.19%In the 2016 Assembly polls, while the overall turnout was 83.02%, women’s turnout rose to 83.13% and men’s 82.23%.Must Read | Watch out for 96 Bengal seats, 48 of which saw voter dip & accounted for 28% SIR deletionsThe 2019 Lok Sabha polls saw a similar trend. Overall turnout was 81.76%, with women turning out to vote at a rate of 81.79% and men at 81.35%.In the 2021 Assembly elections, the overall turnout was 82.3%. While women’s turnout was 81.75%, men’s was 81.37%.Story continues below this adIn the 2024 Lok Sabha, the gap widened. Overall turnout stood at 79.55%, with women’s turnout at 80.16% and men’s at 78.2%.In the current Assembly elections in Bengal, the two phases of voting were marked by long queues at polling booths, with both women and men voters lining up across the state.Women voters have played a key role in scripting the TMC’s successive wins since 2011. The three-term CM Mamata cultivated women as a distinctive constituency for her party, rolling out various welfare schemes, including cash assistance, for them. After assuming power for the first term, she started the Kanyashree scheme for girl children to incentivise their education. She also launched the Rupashree scheme for girls to give Rs 25,000 each to their parents for their marriage. In 2021, Mamata launched the Lakshmir Bhandar scheme to provide Rs 500 to all women per month, which has now been increased to Rs 1500 rupees.But the rising turnout among women is not a phenomenon unique to Bengal. Across India in the last few Lok Sabha polls, women have not only begun to outnumber men in the overall electorate, but have also turned out to vote in greater numbers. An analysis of the data for the 2009, 2014 and 2019 general elections shows that the share of women in the total electorate increased from 47.73% in 2009 to 48.09% in 2019.Story continues below this adAlso Read | Why BJP feels it has an advantage in BengalHistorical dataIn Bengal, an analysis of gender-wise turnout data shows that between the 1962 Assembly polls and the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, women’s turnout consistently lagged men’s turnout. In 1962, the overall turnout was 55%, and while men’s turnout was 61.77%, women’s turnout trailed at 47.43%. By 2009, overall turnout had risen to 81.42%, and women’s turnout at 80.25% had nearly caught up to men’s turnout at 82.29%.“Since 1978, during the Left Front regime, reservation was started in panchayats for women. Slowly, women became more and more politically conscious and engaged in participatory politics in Bengal. Their political rights as equal to men were ensured,” said Sujan Chakraborty, CPI(M) Central Committee member.“But also important is that after 2011, women’s turnout is more than men’s because of migration. Many youths went out of the state for jobs. A huge number of youths are working in different states because there are no job opportunities in Bengal. In election after election, a section of these men never came to vote, while women voted. However, this time there was a rush to return and vote,” Chakraborty added.Story continues below this adTMC spokesperson Arup Chakraborty said, “People from the ‘cow-belt’ of India will never win West Bengal because of this trend of more women voters turning up to polling stations. This is because this state always talked about women’s empowerment right from (pre-Independence reformers) Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and Raja Rammohan Roy. Because of this, the BJP leadership thought it was necessary to stop women from voting in Bengal. In the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), after Muslim, a large number of women voters were deleted from the electoral rolls.”BJP Rajya Sabha MP Rahul Sinha said, “During the Mamata Banerjee regime, women were mostly humiliated. Not only that, atrocities against women also increased during the TMC regime. Naturally, women came out and voted against TMC in this election.”