The Chief Election Commissioner Navin B Chawla has said instructions had been given to authorities concerned to revise the format of electoral rolls to indicate the sex of Transgenders as ‘Others’.
The Commission had decided and permitted the Transgenders to register as “other” or “o”, he said, describing their request for identity option on the rolls as legitimate.
Mr. Chawla said the Commission had revised the format of the Electoral rolls modifying the column head to indicate their sex as “others“.
Necessary instructions had been issued to electoral registration authorities concerned to give effect to the Commission’s decision, he said at the third Convocation of the Tata—Dhan Academy here on Monday night.
Referring to the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, he said the successful conduct of the polls was due to a host of factors including deployment of micro-observers.
As many as 1,40,000 micro observers were deployed in the elections which led to tremendous amount of objectivity in the process, he said.
He said India had a unique Election observation system. The home grown observation-mechanism had done well in India as evidenced by the constant demand by opposition parties for increased number of observers.
“Vulnerability Mapping” that identified villages that were vulnerable to intimidation overt or silent was another factor that led to the sucessful conduct of polls. Some 86,782 villages were identified as vulnerable and in some villages people voted for the first time since independence.
In electoral roll preparation and creating voter awareness, NGOs as well as corporate houses and service Providers joined hands to assist the Commission’s efforts.
The Commission was also willing to provide Braille Electronic voting Machines to help the visually impaired cast their votes, he added.
