More Transgender Are Ready To Exercise Their Voting Rights In Upcoming Elections

As the elections are rounding up the corner, more and more people are registering to the voters’ list. And an increase can be seen in the transgender voters.

In Madhya Pradesh, the number of transgender voters has increased by over 300 as the state gets ready to go to Assembly polls later this year.

As on July 31, the number of total voters registered in MP stood at 4.94 crores. Of these, 1,286 are transgender.

“In the last Assembly polls, 970 voters of the third gender were registered. The number has now gone up to 1,286 in the recently published electoral rolls,” MP’s Chief Electoral Officer V L Kantha Rao told the media on Saturday.

In Madhya Pradesh, the ‘third gender’ column was added to the voters’ application list before the 2013 polls in the state. The column used to be marked as others before.

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TRANSGENDERS WHO HOLD A POLITICAL POSITION

Notably, Madhya Pradesh was the first state in the country to elect a transgender, Shabnam Mausi, as an MLA. Shabnam Mausi was elected from the Sohagpur Assembly constituency in Shahdol district in a by-poll in 2000.

Before that, a person from the community was elected as a mayor in the state.

More often than not, the political parties often ignore the transgender community. The ignorance of the leaders is the main reason for the transgender to not enrol in the voters’ list Shabnam Mausi said.

Kamala Jaan was the first transgender to be elected to the mayor’s office in Katni town of Madhya Pradesh in 1999. Later in 2009, another transgender, Kamla Bua, was elected as the mayor of the state’s Sagar town.

The Election Commission’s data available on its website says the highest number of third gender voters – 94 – is registered in the Bhopal Central Assembly constituency.

However, there is not a single third gender voter registered in 23 out of the total 230 Assembly seats in MP. The total number of registered voters in MP has gone up to 4.94 crores from 4.66 crores in 2013, as per the data.

The EC is likely to publish the final list of voters in the state later this month.