The Hindu : Eunuchs rank third, fourth

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Dec 07, 2003

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Eunuchs rank third, fourth

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI DEC. 6. Though they attracted a lot of attention from the people of the area during the fortnight-long campaign, all the four eunuchs in the fray forfeited their security deposits in the Delhi Assembly elections.

For the first time in the Capital, four eunuchs had entered the fray and campaigned vigorously during the two-week-long period. Though all of them forfeited their security deposits, one of them finished third while another was placed fourth in their respective constituencies.

In the Patel Nagar Assembly constituency, Asha Kinner - a `guru' of the local community of eunuchs - ended up third only after the winner, Ramakant Goswami of the Congress, and runner-up Mahesh Chadha of the BJP. Asha Kinner, who had in her campaign team the largest number of eunuchs in Delhi, polled 1,043 votes against the winner's 32,833 and runner-up's 18,657 votes.

A large number of eunuchs had descended on the Capital from various parts of the country to campaign for Asha. Divided into a large number of small groups, the "tolis'' of eunuchs attired in colourful dresses concentrated more on door-to-door campaigning and street corner meetings. With their traditional singing of the popular Hindi songs and their innovative ways of popularising the election symbol, a number of people and onlookers were attracted to these meetings.

However, Neelam Kinner from Bawana Assembly constituency had the distinction of getting the maximum (1,851) votes among all the four eunuchs in the fray. In a 10-corner contest, she ranked fourth only after Surender Kumar of the Congress (50,327), Raj Kumar of the Bharatiya Janata Party (35,805) and Sanjay Kumar of the Bahujan Samaj Party (5,423).

The youngest of them all, Gojo Kinner (36), polled just 120 of the 71,880 votes polled in the Mehrauli Assembly constituency. Two contestants from here, Tariq Moin Rizvi and Tilak, got fewer votes than Gojo, with 87 and 91 votes respectively. The `cot' was her election symbol. Balram Tanwar of the Congress defeated Brahm Singh Tanwar of the BJP by 11,656 votes here.

In the neighbouring Saket constituency, 118 of the 59,487 electors cast their vote in favour of Hari Chand alias Anita Kinner. Anita ranked 15 among the 19 candidates in the fray from here. Incidentally, the margin of victory between the winner and the runner-up was the lowest in the Capital. Vijay Jolly of the BJP defeated Rohit Manchanda of the Congress by just 121 votes.

Both Saket and Mehrauli in South Delhi have a sizable eunuch population. But they bagged more votes in the Patel Nagar and Bawana Assembly constituencies.

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Eunuchs rank third, fourth