Bhopal, Dec 9 2024-
Former MLA Shabnam Mausi, who is the ever first transgender to reach the Legislative Assembly, slammed Madhya Pradesh Congress head Jitu Patwari, accusing him of insulting the transgender community.
Shabnam Mausi claimed she had gone to Patwari’s residence to meet him, however, she was forced to return. Former MLA alleged that Patwari’s office bearers insulted her and denied her entry.
“I was willing to become a Congress member that is why I went to meet Jitu Patwari. But I was not allowed to enter his residence. He has insulted not only me but the entire transgender community and he will pay for his act,” said Shabnam Mausi.
Former Sohagpur (Shahdol) MLA, Shabnam said the Congress has already lost its ground in Madhya Pradesh due to such type of attitude.
“No one will remain with the Congress party,” she claimed.
Mausi made electoral history after winning the bypolls from the Sohagpur Assembly constituency in the Shahdol district of Madhya Pradesh in February 2000, six years after the transgender community was granted voting rights in 1994.
The bypolls was necessitated following the death of the then Sohagpur’s sitting Congress legislator Krishnapal Singh. She defeated Lallu Singh by a margin of more than 17,800 votes and won as an independent candidate.
However, in the 2003 Assembly polls, she could only manage to get just 1,400 votes and lost. In 2008, the Sohagpur seat was merged with other Assembly constituencies in the delimitation exercise.
Madhya Pradesh, which had elected the country’s first transgender MLA and mayor, at present has no participation of community in the state politics.
Apart from Shabnam Mausi, another transgender Kamala ‘Bua’ was elected as Mayor of Sagar Municipal Corporation in 2009. (Agency)
