Bareilly: The district administration has intensified its effort to sensitise transgender people to cast their votes in the Lok Sabha elections taking place in Bareilly district on April 23.A total of 188 transgender voters have been registered with the Election Commission at present. However, only three transgender voters had turned out to cast their votes in the 2014 general elections in Bareilly and four in Aonla, according to information available on the Election Commission’s website.In this backdrop, the district administration has swung into action to ensure that all registered transgender people cast their votes. “We will conduct voter awareness rallies, during which our focus will be on transgender voters. We will make them aware of their voting rights,” said chief development officer (CDO) Satyendra Kumar.“We will also ensure that all registered transgender voters participate in the awareness rallies with us. We understand there are many people, including transgender people, in the district who are yet to get their names registered in the voting list. A special camp for this purpose will soon be held at Vikas Bhawan,” said CDO.The district administration is planning to hold a one-day camp before March 30 so that all those eligible transgender people who have so far not been registered with the EC can get themselves registered.CDO said, “Polling trends of the previous elections suggest that turnout in urban areas stood at 50% to 55%. However, in order to increase the polling percentage this election, we are going to rope in students of 200 plus educational institutions and NCC and NSS cadets to sensitise people about their voting rights and the importance of their votes. Besides, we are also going to launch voter awareness drives with focus on down-trodden sections and transgender people.”A transgender person, Mohini, 52, a resident of Ghari Chowki in Murabpur locality of old city, has a voter ID card, but she had never cast her vote.Asked why she doesn’t cast her vote, Mohini said, “What is point in casting our vote when people don’t consider us human being. I had bitter experience while applying for a PAN card to open a bank account. I was refused by officials as there was no option for transgender people in the online submission of the application.”

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