11,000 transgender voters left out of rolls: Aata

GUWAHATI: At least 11,000 transgender voters were left out in the last summary revision of the electoral rolls which were published on January 1 this year, All Assam Transgender Association (Aata) has claimed. Most of these transgender voters who were left out are from Tinsukia, Dibrugarh,

Jorhat

, Nalbari, Barpeta, Silchar and Karimganj districts, Aata has said.


Assam chief electoral officer (CEO) has said that at least 503 voters were marked under the third gender till the last revision.

Swati Bidhan Baruah, the first transgender judge of Assam and founder of Aata, said, "All the 11,000 people from the transgender community, who were left out, have failed to enrol themselves due to a lengthy documentation procedure involved in declaring their genders, names and other details. Aata has reached out to them and held a camp, besides applying for online electoral enrollment."

Earlier, around 20,000 members of the transgender community had faced trouble to make it into the National Register of Citizens (NRC) list due to similar reasons. Later Swati had moved the Supreme Court.

CEO Mukesh Sahu has already announced that anyone who was left out from the January summary can apply for enrollment online.

"Since the voter list will be updated, we are hopeful that all the transgender voters will be enrolled. I've personally requested the CEO about the matter too," Swati said. The transgender activist added that the members of the community were displeased with the state government's 'inaction' in implementing the revised state policy on the transgender community.

"The community has always been deprived by political parties. The community will take a call to participate or boycott the polls based on their what promises they make - whether or not they want to work for the betterment of the third gender community," the Aata leader said.