Bivek Mathur
Jammu, Apr 14: According to an analysis of Indian electorate from 1998 to 2014, the Indian electorate grew by 34 percent and the northern most state of Jammu and Kashmir is second last in the list with lowest growth rate.
A comparison of the electorate data as per the final publication of summary revision 2014 (Released by Election Commission of India on February 14 2014) with that of last four General elections (From 1998 onwards) shows that the total electorate size of the country grew by 34.45% from 605,880,192 electors in 1998 to reach 814,591,184 in 2014. This growth was 21.31% relative to an electorate size of 671, 487,930 in 2004.
Among the 28 states and 7 union territories, Dadar and Nagar Haweli at 53.9% registered the highest rate of growth in electorate size during the period from 2004 to 2014, followed by Pudducherry at 39.1%.
Among states, West Bengal registered the highest rate of growth at 31.7%. Among all states and UTs, Andaman & Nicobar Islands registered the lowest growth rate at 6.7%, next followed by Jammu and Kashmir at 8.9%.
In absolute numbers, Uttar Pradesh registered the highest growth in electorate size relative to 2004, with Lakshdeep the lowest.
Further, Jammu And Kashmir figures in the list of states having lowest number of new electorates. Among the 28 states and seven union territories, Dadra and Nagar Haveli has the highest proportion of newly eligible electors at 9.88% followed by Jharkhand at 9.03 percent. Andaman and Nicobar Islands at 1.12% has the lowest proportion of newly eligible electors, followed by Himachal Pradesh with 1.33 percent, Mahrashtra with 1.4%, Karnataka and Kerala with 1.8%, NCT region of Delhi with 1.9%, and Jammu and Kashmir with 2.1% is at sixth number with lowest new electorates. The national percentage of newly eligible electors is 2.8% which is much better than the state Jammu and Kashmir. |
