Maharashtra Elections 2024: Unlike 2019, Beed Constable This Time Votes As A 'Complete Man'

Beed: November 20 proved to be another signficant day in the life of Lalit Salve (36), a police constable from Beed, who has undergone a sex-change surgery. On Wednesday, Salve for the first time voted as a 'man'.

Lalit Salve, who was earlier identified as Lalita Salve, a female, underwent a sex-change surgery in 2018. The medical procedures to change sex from female to male, recovery and further documentation to register as a 'male' took him five years. Till 2019, I voted as a woman. "This is my first assembly election as a male voter. I had to make some new documents to change my gender on the voter's card," Salve said speaking with TOI.

After his sex-change surgery, Lalit got married in 2020 and in January 2024, he embraced fatherhood. Lalit and his wife Seema now have a 10-month-old boy, named Aarush.

Salve had to fight several legal battles to medically change his sex while serving in the Maharashtra police department. Salve overcame not only departmental and legal, but also social challenges.

"Having voted this time, I feel I have full human rights in our democratic country, India", Salve said speaking with TOI.

About Lalit Salve

Salve was born in June 1988 (as Lalita, a female) and joined the Maharashtra Police in 2010 and has been posted at Majalgaon city police station in the state's Beed district. Salve began developing trans-sexual gender symptoms in 2013 and underwent genetic testing after he noticed changes in his body.

In 2017, Salve moved to Bombay High Court seeking a month's leave to undergo sex-reassignment surgery, which was granted. He later undergo three surgeries for sex change between 2018 and 2020 in the government-run St George Hospital in Mumbai. He married after his surgeries were completed and the couple were blessed with a baby boy in January this year.