Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar on Wednesday said a committee will be set up to make the entire process of enlisting transgenders as voters easier.

Kumar was here for the national-level launch of a special summary revision of voters’ list.

Speaking about the hardships faced by transgenders while enlisting themselves as voters, Kumar told reporters that he and his colleagues had a meeting with a group of transgenders.

“I must say that their feelings, comments moved us. They are saying they have no property rights so what address they should give? They said they have stigmas, their date of birth is not logged,” he said.

“After the meeting with transgenders, we have decided that we will appoint a committee for them, for their enlisting, where we will see how we can make our processes easier in terms of date of birth, their certificates, how can we take self-affidavits as proof or (list them as voters) without even property rights,” said Kumar.

Chief Electoral Officer of Maharashtra Shrikant Deshpande has done a lot of work in this regard, and he will chair the committee for all of India, Kumar added.

“We would also try to make some transgenders our national icons. They deserve to be our national icons as they are also part of society as much as anybody of us,” he said.

Talking about another `special group’ of voters, also termed as `deprived groups’, Kumar said that there are 75 particularly vulnerable tribal groups whose numbers are very small, sometimes less than 100, and who live in far-off areas.

“Voter card is empowerment,” and hence the ECI is conducting an outreach program to enlist the members of such marginalized groups as voters, he said.

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