Mumbai: After a poor response from the transgender community in voter enrolment, the state branch of the Election Commission of India (ECI) has undertaken a special program in a bid to bring them into the ‘mainstream’ by extending government schemes and encouraging them to participate in the electoral process.
Under the initiative, the State Election Commission (SEC), Maharashtra, has announced a fellowship program in which issues faced by the community will be studied. The fellowships, worth ₹1.50 lakh annually each, will be awarded to two people from the community. The selected fellows will submit a research paper suggesting the steps to be taken by the commission.
“We expect the fellows to study various aspects related to the issues faced by the transgender community, including their living conditions, size of the population, measures to help them in solving the issues with the help of government and ways to reach out to them for enrolment as voters, among others. They are deprived of the government schemes, including benefits of the public distribution system, housing, and medical facilities, just because they are not accepted by the society, including their parents, due to the lack of required documents. The corrective measures could be taken with the help of research material expected to be submitted by the fellows,” said an official from the election branch.
The officer said that they have also convened a 2-day conference in August in Pune University in coordination with various government departments to understand the steps required for the inclusion of transpersons into the mainstream.
“Ministers and officials from various departments, including school and higher and technical, skill development, food and civil supplies, are expected to participate in the conference. The representatives of the community and NGOs working for them and other stakeholders will highlight the problems faced by them. We expect it to be a turning point in bringing some change in the life of transpersons,” the officer said.
Despite various drives special by the EC, the state has registered only 3,520 transpersons as voters.
“The ECI is taking these steps for the inclusion of the community in the election process. We believe in the inclusive electoral process which promotes democracy. We cannot succeed in our moto by keeping this community in isolation hence we are trying to act in coordination with all the government departments,” said Shrikant Deshpande, chief electoral officer, Maharashtra.
“To make the enrolment simpler, we have changed the rules allowing transpersons to enrol as voters by submitting a self-declaration. Verification done by booth-level officers at their residential address is sufficient to enrol them as voters. Despite this, the response from the community is very poor due to various reasons. Some of them do not want to disclose their identity and want to be recognised as male or female,” Deshpande said.
Deepak Sonawane, the founder of Bhakar Foundation, the NGO that works for the rights of the transgender community, said, “The transpersons are away from the electoral process because they think nobody does think about them and there is no point in voting. The drive undertaken by the ECI will help in inculcating confidence among the community members about recognition by others and the government. We expect the fellowship to help in finding their accurate population, their changed way of life after the Covid-19 pandemic.”
