By IANS,
Bhopal: History was repeated in Madhya Pradesh when Kamla Bua, a eunuch, was elected mayor of Sagar town defeating the nearest Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rival by a huge margin late Tuesday night.
This is the fourth instance of eunuchs being elected to various posts in Madhya Pradesh.
In 2000, Shabnam Mausi became the first eunuch to be elected to the state assembly from Sohagpur constituency of Shahdol district. Another eunuch, Kamla Jaan, was elected mayor of Katni town in 2001 and Meena Bai became president of the Sehora town municipality the same year.
Kamla Jaan’s election was, however, quashed by the Madhya Pradesh High Court in February 2003 upholding a trial court’s verdict that eunuchs were male and could not seek election to offices reserved for women.
Kamla Bua, who contested as an independent, defeated her rival by 40,000 votes in the Sagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) elections.
“It’s a clear message to the Congress and the BJP that the people of Sagar no longer believe in these two parties who have done nothing for the development of the district. Their representatives remained interested in their own development instead,” said Gouri Yadav, state president of the Samajwadi Party.
S.P. Shukla, a resident of Sagar, said: “The BJP was holding the seat of mayor in Sagar for the past two terms but what the people got in return was total lack of development. On the other hand, the incumbent continued to become prosperous by indulging in corrupt deals.”
Kamla Bua, the guru of the eunuch community in Sagar said she will constitute a committee to elicit views on what should be done for the development of Sagar.
The committee, according to her, would comprise religious leaders, engineers, doctors, professors, advocates, retired judges, senior journalists, industrialists and businessmen.