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Voting
the Sex Workers
2010 was the year of election and the fever was
palpable. DMSC conducted election for its branch
and central committees with tenure of 2 years
which started since 1997.
This
was 7th election of DMSC which was held in 48
branches. During this time sex workers voted
enthusiastically to elect 4 office bears in each
of these 48 branch committees. The election was
declared in November 2009 and by march 2010 it
was concluded with the formation of the central
committee. Following 2 months campaign, the
voting started on 13th of January 2010 and the
last branch committee elected their
representatives on 11th of February. There
were fierce contest among the aspirant
candidates in those branches. There were even
cases of tie when we had to go for toss to
select the final one. There was allegation of
rigging and call of vote boycott. In each cases
the independent election commission probed into
all their complains/call and took immediate
steps to resume peace and harmony. In few areas
there were minor tussle among the supporters of
candidates after the deceleration of result.
However quick intervention from the
administration of DMSC resolved those issues
amicably. In
Basirhat and in Kalna some of the sex workers
called for vote boycott. The issues for calling
vote boycott were not directly related to
organization, rather with the HIV intervention
project. We could overcome it in Basirhat and in
Kalna the disputes are yet to be settled. In
Ghoradanga after the completion of the election
it was turned out that one elected candidate
stood in the election suppressing facts that
goes against her candidature. Verifying all
these facts the election commission declared the
election of that branch committees as null and
void and a fresh mandate was taken preceded with
adequate preparation for the voting. After
completion of the election of the Branch
committees, the 2nd phase of election starts
where the elected representatives from branch
committees, elect their central committee office
bearers. Any one of the 4 office bears from each
branch committees are eligible to contest as
well as to vote to elect 12 central committee
members. The central committees finally took
over office on 1st of May 2010. The
secretary, President and Treasurers of DMSC who
got elected to hold the DMSC office for the next
two year are Bharati Dey as the Secretary, Sima
Fokla as the President, Tapati Das as the
Treasurer.
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