Visakhapatnam: Transgender, homeless to be educated on exercising franchise

Visakhapatnam: Apart from encouraging eligible voters to exercise their franchise, efforts are on to bring transgender and shelter-less people on board and help them realise the importance of the right to vote. With an objective to make polls accessible and more ‘inclusive’, steps are initiated to reach out to the communities and make them participative in the ensuing polls.

Soon, an extensive awareness drive is all set to be rolled out area-wise in Visakhapatnam to educate the TGs and shelter-less on the need to exercise their franchise.

In connection with this, Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs) and Booth Level Officers (BLOs) are teaming up to ensure that eligible candidates belonging to the third gender category and the shelter-less get enrolled into the voters’ list.

Keeping the demographic and logical errors in view, District Collector A Mallikarjuna laid emphasis on correcting the mistakes if any and set the record straight. In case if there are over 10 voters belonging to one particular address, the district officials intend to focus more on such residences to exclude fake voters from the electoral rolls.

In a step to propel this exercise way forward, district officials intend to stretch their work hours if required. Besides, additional computers and required infrastructure would be facilitated for the EROs and BLOs to look into additions and deletions in the electoral rolls in an effective and transparent manner.