TN Urban Local Body Polls: Transgender Candidate From DMK Ganga Nayak Wins Seat In Vellore

TN Urban Local Body Election 2022: 49-year-old Ganga Nayak has won the Councillor seat in Vellore and her victory has cast a huge representation of the trans community across the state.

Chennai: In a massive victory for the LGBTQ+ community, a transgender candidate of the DMK, won a seat on Tuesday in the Tamil Nadu urban local body elections from Vellore. 49-year-old Ganga Nayak was declared the winning candidate in ward 37 in the Vellore Municipal Corporation. She is a Vellore-based social worker and serves as the secretary of the South India Transgender Association. The DMK candidate won the corporation councillor post with a 15-vote margin. She received a total of 2,131 votes.

The Tamil Nadu urban local body elections were held after a span of 11 years, to fill 12,838 seats in 21 municipal corporations, 138 municipalities and 490 town panchayats. However, this time around, it wasn’t just the DMK which announced trans candidates for the polls. Both the BJP and AIADMK too fielded transgender candidates. A total of 15 trans persons have contested the urban local body polls this year, many of whom stood as independents.

Tamil Nadu | Transgender candidate, R. Ganga of the DMK, won from the Vellore Municipal corporation by a margin of 15 votes in urban local body polls pic.twitter.com/hiHkQYLIJY

— ANI (@ANI) February 23, 2022

Jayadevi, AIADMK’s transgender candidate, contested from Ward 112 in the Teynampet zone of the Chennai Corporation. She has been associated with the party for the last 15 years. Meanwhile, BJP’s trans candidate Rajamma contested from Ward 76 of the Thiru Vi Ka Nagar Zone in the Chennai Corporation.

Who is Ganga Nayak

According the media reports, Ganga Nayak, born to daily wage workers in Vellore, has attained recognition for her social work and services towards the community.  Her drama troupe, which includes 30 transgender persons, has also gained popularity over the years.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ganga and her troupe, held several awareness campaigns across Vellore and other districts of Tamil Nadu. She has become the only candidate from the transgender community in Tamil Nadu to have won a seat in the 2022 urban local body polls. Ganga has been a DMK member for the last twenty years.