In other words, the women-to-men ratio among voters in Bihar is now 892:1,000. In the last Assembly elections, in 2020, there were 899 women voters for every 1,000 men voters.
Among the 32 out of 38 Bihar districts that have published gender-wise voter data following the SIR, 15 or almost half have seen their gender ratios fall compared to five years ago.
However, this is not the first such fall in voter rolls for Bihar. Between the 2005 and 2010 Assembly polls in the state, the number of women voters per 1,000 male voters fell from 865 to 859, before showing a jump to 874 in 2015 and to 899 in 2020. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Bihar’s gender ratio stood at 907.
Gender ratio among Bihar electors
Nitish Kumar, who has been the Chief Minister of Bihar since 2005, has assiduously nurtured a women constituency – which could be one reason for the surge in women voters under him.
As he and his JD(U) are seen to be fading away, it is the first time since 2010 that the gender ratio among voters has fallen in Bihar.
In fact, between the 2020 Assembly elections and the SIR, while the number of men voters has risen by 4.18 lakh, only 1.27 lakh additional women have been added. In contrast, between 2015 and 2020, the number of women electors rose by 39.62 lakh, while the same figure for men was 34.42 lakh. In total, there are 7.08 lakh new voters this time compared to 2020, whereas between 2015 and 2020, the total number of voters rose by 74.05 lakh.
The share of women among newly added voters has also dropped, from 53.51% in 2020 to 17.93% this year. Even in the draft rolls published in August, more women voters were deleted, at 36.3 lakh, than men, at 29.12 lakh.
The gender ratio among Bihar voters post-SIR now stands lower than the overall sex ratio for the state as per the 2011 Census, which was 918 females per 1,000 males. In percentage terms, women make up 47.05% of the voters now, though in the 2011 Census, they comprised 47.86% of the population.
Among districts, the one where the gender gap is the lowest is Bhagalpur, with 939 women voters per 1,000 men voters, while West Champaran has the highest gap, at 872:1,000.
In Gopalganj district, which saw the biggest decline overall in its voter count over the course of the SIR, the gender ratio also saw the highest precipitous drop, from 952 in 2020 to 886 this year.
The other districts with big declines in gender ratio are Gaya (from 933 in 2020 to 900 in 2025), Siwan (914 to 884), Arwal (922 to 894), and Jehanabad (913 to 888).
In 17 districts, gender ratios saw a rise in electoral rolls. The highest was in Bhagalpur, where women voters per 1,000 male voters rose from 890 in 2020 to 939 post-SIR. The other districts with a spike are Vaishali (from 860 in 2020 to 897 in 2025), Bhojpur (852 to 880), Munger (848 to 875), and Saran (871 to 894).
Among the 20 districts, covering 126 Assembly seats, for which constituency-level data is available, just 38 seats have women voters who add up to more than 900 per 1,000 male voters. Katihar district’s Kohra seat has the highest gender ratio at 941, followed by Araria’s Raniganj at 932, the Katihar seat at 930, Gaya’s Gaya Town at 922, and Patna’s Patna Sahib at 921.
On the other end of the spectrum, Purnia district’s Amour seat has the lowest gender ratio at 852, followed by Gopalganj’s Kuchaikote and East Champaran’s Chiraiya at 861 each, Munger’s Tarapur at 864, and East Champaran’s Narkatia and Motihar at 866 each.
How parties, experts see the gender ratio decline
The ruling JD(U) argued that despite the data, women’s participation in elections was improving. The BJP said that family dynamics, particularly reliance on male members for documentation, and migration could be among the factors behind the fall in gender ratio.
JD(U) spokesperson Anjum Ara, who lost the 2020 election from Dumraon, said there was an age gap too. Among older generations, women were mostly dependent on male family heads to register as voters, but younger voters now are more aware about their rights and registering themselves, she said.
At the same time, Ara said, “women’s turnout for polling remains higher than male voters”. “Women in Bihar play a key role in government formation. They are aware politically and understand which party’s government will work for their empowerment.”
Bihar BJP vice-president Amrita Bhushan spoke about an urban-rural divide in voter registration among women, but like Ara, said that while they might not be very vocal, they are very aware voters. Bhushan also attributed migration as a reason for the low gender ratio, saying men working outside Bihar generally return home to get registered as voters but migrant women usually do not.
Having termed the SIR exercise a “vote cutting” move by the BJP government, INDIA bloc parties RJD and CPI (M-L) L said irregularities in it were one reason for decline of women voters. However, ally Congress felt increased migration was a cause.
RJD spokesperson Mrityunjay Tiwari told The Indian Express: “We are not surprised at the women-men ratio falling because the EC has carried out the SIR in work-from-home mode, with booth-level workers not reaching out to voters. Since women who were not in the 2003 rolls may not have been able to submit their parents’ details as required… There is also still a lack of awareness among women.”
CPI (M-L) L state secretary Kunal claimed the party’s booth-level agents (BLAs) had found many SIR discrepancies, including arbitrary deletion of voters, mostly women. “Our BLAs found women faced great difficulty with documentation because of lack of education and general awareness among them.”
Congress spokesperson Asit Nath Tiwari said, “The decreasing women ratio also suggests that there has been migration among women, most of whom could have left Bihar with their husbands and children (and not returned to register as voters).”
Professor Bimal Prasad Singh, head of the political science department at Patliputra University in Patna, felt the gender ratio is low largely because women in rural areas only register as voters when their husbands or any political party workers get their forms filled, while women in urban areas who are homemakers tend not to register. Still, Prasad Singh said: “Women in rural areas are concerned and active in election times in view of welfare schemes promised by the parties.”
With inputs from Santosh Singh