E-Paper
No third gender option in AAP form, trans candidate files nomination as ‘woman’
The election commission introduced the “third gender” option in voter rolls and nomination papers after a landmark decision by the Supreme Court in 2014 that confirmed the rights of the transgender community and affirmed the right to self-determination of gender.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate for the Dehradun mayoral polls, Rajni Rawat, has had to mark her gender as “woman” because the nomination form lacks a “third gender” option. The 48-year-old, who identifies as a transgender person, is fighting her third local body election and says she has been forced to tick the “woman” option every time.
“I had to file the nomination as a woman as there was no option in the form provided by the state election commission,” said Rawat over the phone. Along with Dehradun, 84 urban local bodies in Uttarakhand go to the polls on November 18.
The election commission introduced the “third gender” option in voter rolls and nomination papers after a landmark decision by the Supreme Court in 2014 that confirmed the rights of the transgender community and affirmed the right to self-determination of gender. But state election commissioner Chandrashekhar Bhatt said the nomination forms used in Dehradun didn’t have the third gender option as they were old.
“The forms we are using are old that don’t have the option for transgender to mention themselves as third gender. However, during the nomination, we had told Rawat that if she wanted, she could get the option typed separately but she didn’t do that and filled the form as a woman only,” Bhatt said.
“We would soon get the new forms with the third gender option.”
Rawat took everyone by surprise in 2008 when as an independent candidate in her debut mayoral poll, she came second. She secured 44,000 votes, edging past the Congress candidate but losing to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) nominee and eventual mayor Vinod Chamoli.
Rawat also fought the 2013 mayoral elections as a Bahujan Samaj Party candidate and got 46,000 votes.
“I have been mentioning myself as a woman in the nominations and I think it hardly matters as everyone knows who I am; it is not a hidden fact. Also, I am never ashamed of it and right now what is important is winning elections,” Rawat said.
Rawat is known to command a tremendous following among the local transgender community and pockets of the slums that line the city.
She contested the assembly elections in 2012 as an independent candidate. She joined the Congress before the 2014 general elections and was appointed the vice-chairperson of the state women’s commission in 2015 but left the party in 2017 after being denied an assembly election ticket. She joined the AAP last week.
