Advertisement
Home PoliticsGossip

2700 Transgender Voters In Telangana!

2700 Transgender Voters In Telangana!

Interesting as it can sound, as many as 2,663 people belonging to third gender have registered their names as voters in Telangana for exercising their franchise in the ensuing assembly elections.

According to the final draft roles released by the Election Commission on Friday night, the total number of voters in the state are 2,73,18,603 of which 1,37,87,920 are males and 1,35,28,020 are females.

The remaining 2,663 voters are transgenders. This is slightly higher than the number of transgenders voters of 2439 registered by September 10.

This is the first time that the enumeration of transgenders was done separately in Telangana. In 2014, the EC prepared a common list of transgenders in combined Andhra Pradesh.

Including both the states, there were 4,421 transgenders in combined AP.

Uttar Pradesh accounted for the highest number of transgenders with 6,630 transgender voters in 2014, while there were only two transgender voters in Himachal Pradesh.

The Election Commission recognised transgenders as voters in 2009 elections and enrolled them under “others” column.

Given the social stigma and injustice meted out to them, their participation as an electorate has, however, remained abysmal.

According to the Election Commission data, as of February 14, there were 28,341 voters registered under the “Others” category.

Setting this gender issue aside, the Congress party cried foul over the unilateral release of the voters’ list by the EC.

Telangana PCC election commission coordination committee chairman Marri Shashidhar Reddy said there were 2.80 crore voters in 2014 and the number has now fallen to 2.73 crore, despite the extension of time for enrolment of new voters.

He reminded that the EC authorities themselves said there were applications from 30 lakh new voters. After deleting the old names, the additional votes would be around 22 lakh.

“But now, they say the total number of voters in just 2.73 crore. How can the number go down if there are new voters’ enrolment?” he asked.

RELATED ARTICLES

Tags: Telangana Election Commission