In a first, Maharashtra’s top poll office to take part in Pune Pride March

“The Chief Election Commission has, over the years, stressed on the concept of inclusive democracy to ensure every eligible voter is enrolled. Our reachout to the transgender community is part of this drive,” Deshpande said. He will be joined by his staff at the march.

“For us, the participation of the CEO is a very welcome step,” said Anil Ukarande, the founder of YUTAK, which is organising the 11th edition of the march, which starts at 4 pm on Sunday from JM Road. Representatives of several corporates and social organisations are also expected to take part.

From easing the process of documentation necessary to allowing individuals to self-declare their identity, the CEO’s office has taken several steps to make voters’ registration “inclusive”.

“When we started the process, we were aware that we have to rethink about the documents necessary for them to be registered. Thus, in the first phase, we allowed the ‘gurus’ of the community to verify their identity, which would be accepted as an official document,” he said, referring to the guru-shishya system among transgenders wherein a senior transgender is in charge of a group of junior members of the community.

“However, we soon realised that many were reluctant to provide the details as this system has an element of financial exploitation in it,” he said.

Deshpande said his office then allowed transgenders to self-declare their address to be verified by his staff. “When we started the process, Maharashtra’s roll had just over 1,000 transgender individuals but by now we have managed to register 5,000-plus of them. But the state’s population of transgender individuals would easily be in lakhs. We need to reach every one of them,” he said.

Transgender individuals, Deshpande said, face unique challenges “They are shunned by society and many of them have shunned society also. We have to reach out to make them part of the larger community,” he said.

Referring to other issues, such as livelihood, education and health, the CEO said, “A year or so back, the CEO had conducted a special programme at the Savitribai Phule Pune University to discuss the issues. We are planning to publish the proceedings and present it to the special committee (set up by the state government) as well,” Deshpande said.

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Ukarande’s organisation YUTAK has been working with issues related to sexual minorities and has helped many transgender individuals get their ID cards and register themselves on the voters’ list.