Guwahati, April 10 (IANS) Apart from outshining men in voting percentage in Assam, Kerala and Puducherry, women electors in Thursday’s Assembly elections helped set records in the overall polling percentage in the northeastern state and the southern Union Territory, ECI data showed.

In Kerala, the women voter percentage on Thursday was 81.19 per cent which was higher than the 1987 Assembly poll’s record of 80.58 per cent, the data showed on Friday.

The overwhelming participation of women in Assam led to the setting of a new record of 86.50 per cent, overshadowing the previous best of 84.67 per cent in the 2016 Assembly elections.

Puducherry’s women voters followed the trend in the other two states and recorded a historic voting percentage of 91.40. This was better than the 2011 Assembly elections in which women’s voter turnout touched 86.97 per cent.

Election officials believe that it was the enthusiastic response of women voters in two of the three states that set records in overall voter turnout on Thursday.

Kerala recorded an overall turnout, including men and women, of 78.27 per cent on Thursday, which was not as good as the 1960 Assembly election’s unbroken record of 85.77 per cent.

The male voter turnout in the southern state was recorded at 75.19 per cent on Thursday, five percentage points below the record 80.51 per cent of the 1987 Assembly polls, the data said.

Assam broke Kerala’s all-time high record of overall voting percentage on Thursday. The electors in the northeastern state clocked a total voting percentage of 85.91 per cent, a shade better than Kerala’s all-time high voter turnout of 85.77 per cent in 1960.

The male voter turnout in Assam on Thursday stood at 85.33 per cent, a record for the state. The previous best performance by male voters in Assam was in the 2016 Assembly elections, when they clocked a turnout of 84.33 per cent, according to ECI data.

The Union Territory of Puducherry set an impressive overall polling percentage of 89.87 on Thursday. Male voters in the UT clocked a turnout of 88.13 per cent – a record.

In all three states, the overall turnout, combining male and female voting percentages, on Thursday was higher than the turnout in the last parliamentary elections in 2024.

In Kerala, the 2024 Lol Sabha election turnout was 72.04 per cent, and in Thursday’s Assembly election it stood at 78.27 per cent.

Assam’s total voting percentage in the 2024 Lok Sabha election was 81.87 per cent. On Thursday, the Assembly election turnout was 85.91, official data showed.

In Puducherry, the 2024 Lok Sabha poll turnout was 79.24 per cent, but in Thursday’s Assembly elections it stood at 89.87 per cent, said the ECI data.

–IANS

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