Assam transgender community to boycott Lok Sabha polls if govt fails to implement their demands
Guwahati, Mar 18 (IBNS): The transgender community of Assam will boycott the upcoming Lok Sabha elections if the government doesn’t come ahead and implement the recently published revised state policy for development of the transgender community in the state.
According to the reports, there are around 15,000 transgender living in Assam and names of 503 transgender were included in the draft electoral rolls in the state.
The revised policy intended for the welfare of the transgender community in the state.
Swati Bidhan Baruah, the first transgender judge of Assam and founder of All Assam Transgender Association (AATA) said that, presently around 15,000 transgender living in Assam and 11,000 out of them to get themselves enrolled in the electoral rolls.
“But, if the state government doesn’t take any initiative to implement the revised transgender policy than the entire community will boycott the Lok Sabha election,” Swati Bidhan Baruah said.
“We raised our protests against the present government about in action towards the community and implementing the transgender policy. For which, the government is lying silent in last 4-5 years. After the protest, the government came up and made revised transgender policy. The transgender community is demanded to implement the revised policy as soon as possible. If the government fails to implement the same as the transgender suffering lot of problems and fighting our own existence, than we will boycott the entire Lok Sabha election,” Swati Bidhan Baruah said.
She further said that, the election commission has informed that, only 503 transgender have been enrolled in the electoral rolls.
“But the final list has not been released so far and we are waiting for the final list and we hope so that the community persons who applied for inclusion their names in the voter list will include. Nearly 15,000 transgender applied for it through online,” Swati Bidhan Baruah said.
(By Hemanta Kumar Nath, Guwahati)
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