Claiming that the statistic of Sushasoner Jonno Nagorik (Sujan) over the declining share of female voters is authentic, the non-government organisation on Wednesday alleged that the Election Commission published untrue and half true information in this regard.
“We want to say unequivocally that the source of the statistics published by Sujan is the Election Commission. There’s no error in the Sujan’s statistics. Besides, it was not published for creating any confusion, rather we think that the Election Commission published untrue and half true information in its press release,” said a Sujan press release signed by its president M Hafizuddin Khan and secretary Dr Badiul Alam Majumder.The release said Sujan in its written statement at its recent press conference said a total of 4,695,650 fresh voters came out till November 2014 as per the latest voter list factsheet uploaded on the EC’s website. Of them, females were 2,066,144 against 2,629,506 males.
Among the fresh voters, the gender gap was 12 percent that means there were 44 female voters against 56 male voters.
“We didn’t say anywhere of our written statement that the gender gap is 12 percent among the number of total voters,” Sujan said.
Among the fresh voters registered in the voter lists in 2014-2015, the gender gap between male and female is more than 10 percent in 28 districts out of 64 in the country, it noted.
The gender gap among the fresh voters is 35.3 percent in Feni, 30.82 percent in Laxmipur, 26.44 percent in Noakhali, 25.72 percent in Chandpur, 23.4 percent in Comilla, 22.58 percent in Cox’s Bazar and 20.84 percent in Bhola, the release added.
“But we didn’t say anywhere that the gender gap among the number of total voters is -12 percent in the districts,” Sujan said.
Dismissing the EC’s allegation that Sujan came up with erroneous statistics, the NGO claimed that the allegation tarnished its image. It expected that the commission will withdraw its untrue and half true information.
Earlier on Tuesday, the EC turned down the Sujan’s gender gap allegation terming that statistics placed by Sujan unauthentic and erroneous.
The commission claimed that many eligible males failed to be registered as voters in 2008 saying that the share of male and female voters was 49.11 percent and 50.89 percent respectively in 2008 despite the number of the males was higher at that time.
Noting that the ratio of the country’s male and female was 51.54:48.46 according to the 2001 population census, it said, “Hence, it’s clear that many eligible males could not be included in the voter lists.”
The gender gap in terms of the male voters gradually came down through subsequent voter list updating programmes,” the EC claimed.
According to the EC’s database as of June 15, 2015, the share of male voters and female voters were 50.39 percent and 49.61 percent respectively in the country, which has consistency with the 2011 population census that showed the ratio of male and female was 50.06 percent and 49.94 percent, the commission noted.- UNB
