"The political parties should provide election tickets to LGBT leaders," said Bhumika Shrestha, leader of Blue Diomand Society, a gay rights group at a function in Dhangadhi, Kailali on Friday.
Shrestha said that she hopes to contest the CA election on a Nepali Congress ticket. "Most probably I will get a seat allocated under proportional representation system," she added. She further said she has learnt that the CPN-UML is also working to field third gender candidacies. But she lambasted the UCPN (Maoist) of being biased toward the third gender community.
Speaking at the function, members of the third gender community alleged that the major parties have been ignoring their concerns. "The parties should open up to field third gender candidates in the elections."
So far, various parties have fielded three thrid gender candidates in the farwestern region for the November elections. "I have been selected by Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal under PR system from the Kailali constituency number 2," said Monika Sahi. Parvati Regmi has also been selected as candidate from Bajura representing Nepali Congress. Likewise, Binita Singh has been nominated to contest the poll from Bajhang representing the Nepal Rastriya Seva Dal.
There are 3,000 members of the third gender community in the farwestern region. They said their population across the country stands at 500,000.
Asserting that they were deprived from their "basic human rights", the leaders said, "Though the Supreme Court gave its verdict on December 21, 2007 to provide citizenships to third gender people and members of sexual minority groups, we have not yet got citizenship card," an LGBT leader said.
Nepal Republic Media