More women than men on Gaibandha's final voter list

The District Election Office, Gaibandha, has published the final voter list of the five constituencies of Gaibandha for the 13th national parliament election and the number of women voters exceeds men's by tens of thousands.

Among the 2.19 million voters, 1.08 million are men and 1.1 million are women, as women outnumber men by 25,532.

Gaibandha is gearing up for the election, which has been scheduled to be held in February. Once known as a stronghold of the Jatiya Party, this time, the main rivals in this district are Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami.

In addition, candidates from the Gono Odhikar Parishad, National Citizen Party and Islami Andolan Bangladesh are working on the field.

The district has been bustling with activity ahead of the polls. After announcing party candidates in all the seats in the constituencies, which has long been occupied by Jatiya Party and the now-banned Awami League, BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami are active with their maximum strength.

Meanwhile, BNP's long-time ally Jamaat-e-Islami is making intense preparations to battle for all five seats in the district.

However, the NCP has not yet been able to confirm candidates in three of the five two seats. Other parties have selected candidates in some of the five seats, but they are not active in the election field.

Locals emphasised that the winner should work for creating employment for them the most, while they also demanded improving the health, education and communication systems in the district. Gaibandha had not seen the desired development despite change in representatives of two major parties in the past. In each constituency, the number of female voters has exceeded that of male voters.

Attracting the attention of women voters is now becoming one of the strategies of candidates and parties in their election campaign in Gaibandha. Women's issues revolving around education, health, security and economic opportunities are at the center of the promises. This power of women voters could be the main determinant in Gaibandha's political future.

Of the 419,111 voters in Gaibandha-1 (Sundarganj) constituency, 207, 574 are male voters and 211,534 are women. Moreover, three voters are from the transgender community. Out of 411,460 voters in Gaibandha-2 (Sadar) constituency, 202,037 are men and 209,412 are women, while 11 are from the transgender community.

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