Bengaluru: Thought the transgender community had to struggle a lot to get themselves registered as voters, very few actually turned up to exercise their franchise on polling day.
In the 2018 Karnataka State Assembly election, around 1,484 transgenders were registered, but only 200 cast their votes.
A volunteer working for the sexual minorities commission said, “They should have voted in the elections to ensure that their presence is felt and this would have helped us to work towards getting our due rights. But unfortunately many of them did not come forward to get themselves registered and those who were registered did not vote and the reasons are many.”
An official from the BBMP social welfare department said, “We examined the statistics and found that only 200 of them had voted. So we will contact the sexual minorities and chalk out a plan to ensure that there is greater awareness about the importance of voting. We will also approach the Election Commission to ensure that the transgender community gets an opportunity be registered as voters and enter the mainstream of the society.”
Nivedita Sagar, a transgender activist, who voted for the first time said, “There are more than 25,000 transgenders in the city and only 1,484 have registered out of which only 200 have voted and this is shocking. More people should get their voters identity card and cast their votes in the elections. It is the only means we can show our presence. At the same time, there are various challenges involved in getting the voter identity card and these already being looked into by the authorities concerned. We are hoping the numbers will rise in the parliament elections.”
