BENGALURU: “If transgenders do not vote, they do not have any authority to demand their rights. I have been telling this to our transgender community members wherever I go,” said Padma Shri awardee and transgender Jogati Manjamma, who has been chosen as the election icon by the chief electoral officer of Karnataka. This is the first time that a transgender has been given the honour.
Manjamma said, “We feel good when our community is included in any mainstream activity. When they invited me to their office earlier this month and told me that I had been chosen as an icon, I felt a sense of responsibility. I will ensure people from my community come out and vote. Elections are sacred, and if people do not go out and vote, it means they are showing disrespect to the democratic process.”
Over 41,000 transgenders have been registered as voters this time. Manjamma said she left home when she was around 16 years old and got her voter identity card only when she was 34, in 1991. “That was also because I had not stayed in one place and was travelling all the time. I had no house and did not have any idea about elections. Only after I started practising folk arts and started reading newspapers, I realised its value and got my voter ID card done,” she said. Then, her gender was mentioned as a woman.
Manjamma, who is 65 years old, has been voting for the last 32 years. “Be it the panchayat or Lok Sabha, I have not missed a single election. I have refused to take part in any event out of my town on the polling day. I have also exhorted members of my community in my village to vote. Even today, I am active in getting voter ID cards for my community members,” she said. She has now got the card that mentions her as transgender.
Manjamma, who is the first transwoman to be appointed chairperson of the Karnataka Janapada Academy, hails from Kallukambagraama in Ballari. Named Manjunath Shetty, she started seeing changes in her behaviour and eventually left home. She went to Hospet where she learnt Chowdaki Pada (a folk art form). She got Padma Shri in 2021.