Transgender model and actress from Manipur Bishesh Huirem has been engaged as “State Icon” by the Election Commission (EC) to inspire voters in Manipur to participate in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls while Mumbai social worker Shree Gauri Sawant, another transgender appointed as ‘election ambassador’ by the EC. For its part, the Punjab district electoral office also appointed a transgender Preeti Mahant  as the district icon to create awareness activities under the Systematic Voter Education and Electoral Participation Programme (SVEEP).

In another development, transgender leader Rajni Rawat who contested Mayor election of Dehradun as an Aam Admi Party (AAP) candidate  last year has been barred from contesting Lok Sabha polls as she had failed to submit election expenditure of 2017 assembly polls in Uttrakhand.

According to EC, Bishesh represented India at the Miss International Queen in Thailand in 2016, has been appointed as one of the “state icons” to motivate the masses, particularly transgender, to participate in the Lok Sabha elections.

Bishesh is the first transgender celebrity in the country to be appointed as a state icon for the parliamentary polls. A graduate in fashion and apparel designing from Bangalore University, she is one of the highest-paid artistes in Manipuri films and mobile theatres.

According to EC, it’s the first time that Shree Gauri Sawant a transgender has been appointed as an election ambassador in India. Born as Ganesh Suresh Sawant, she moved out of her Pune house and shifted to Mumbai.

After years of extensive struggle, ShreeGauri formed an NGO named ‘Sakhi Char Chowghi’ to provide health care services and create sexual awareness amongst transgender and the MSM community. In another progressive move, in 2001 she adopted a daughter of a sex worker who passed away while fighting HIV.

As per EC, there are 38,328 transgender registered as electorate in the country.  Uttar Pradesh has 8374 transgender voters, followed by 5497 in Tamil Nadu; 2700 in Bihar; 2032 in Odisha; 2083 in Maharashtra; 1423 in Madhya Pradesh; 1426 in West Bengal and 1368 in Puducherry.  In Delhi, as many as 665 transgender enrolled in the electoral list.

For the first time, transgender were recognised as the third gender by the commission during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls after a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court in this regard.

EC officials said that a large of transgender still prefer to identify themselves as either male or female on the electoral list.