With Gujarat Assembly elections 2017 just around the corner, centenarians in the state and the new entrants Transgender community are set to play an important role in deciding the fate of the election.

Ahmedabad Collector Avanti Singh shared her insight on centenarians, who shall be casting their vote in the upcoming elections. Singh mentioned that it would be inspiring for other voters, if centenarians too cast their vote.

A total of 4,35,28,519 voters will be casting their vote in the upcoming elections on 9 and 14 December. The state election commission has identified around 7670 voters who are above 99 years, with the highest number of centenarian voters in the list being from Ahmedabad (662) followed by Surat (632), Bhavnagar (434) and Amreli (414).

The list released by the State Election Commissioner has identified 662 voters from Ahmedabad, who are aged 100 years and above.

A further bifurcation of 21 constituencies in Ahmedabad shows that the highest numbers of centenarian voters are from Viramgam (35), followed by Vejalpur (27) Sanand (29), and Ghatlodia (23).

Recently, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani took blessings from Ajiben Chandravadia of Dhoraji who is 126-year-old and is also the oldest voter in the state.

Another noteworthy milestone of Assembly elections will be the participation of Gujarat’s Transgender community, which will cast their first vote in the upcoming elections Transgender community was recognised as a third-gender, after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

As per the electoral list, there are 687 registered Transgender, however, it is alleged that there are certainly more in numbers as some are yet to declare themselves as transgender and others are either registered as males or females.

The inclusion of transgender in the voter’s list will also help in changing the attitude of people towards this community.

Manvendra Singh Gohil of Rajpipla’s erstwhile royal family, runs a charity by the name ‘The Lakshya Trust’ for the empowerment of LGBT community, was happy with the move of including the Transgender category as the third gender in the voter IDs.

However, Gohil mentioned that the community is yet to get an identity in the financial system. They still do not have PAN cards and are unable to open bank accounts as there is no classification of the third gender in the bank account opening application forms.

There are many Transgender, who still do not have their Voter ID cards even though their names on exist on the voter list. Merely recognising them as the ‘third gender’ will not suffice, more actions need to be taken to give them the equal status.