Widows fight for slain spouses’ political legacies
Voting for the by-elections in Dantewada (ST) Assembly constituency in south Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, scheduled to be held on Monday, has turned into a battle between widows for inheritance of political legacies of the two local leaders, both slain by naxals.
The bypoll has provided an opportunity to BJP to save its last fort in Bastar by retaining the Dantewada seat and also for its candidate Ojaswi Mandavi who was desperate to inherit political legacy of her husband and sitting BJP MLA Bheema Mandavi, killed by Naxals in April this year.
In the 2018 Assembly elections in Chhattisgarh, BJP could win only one seat (Dantewada) out of total 12 Assembly constituencies in Bastar, once considered the party’s impregnable fort, leaving ruling Congress to wrest 11 seats.
Bheema Mandavi was killed in a maoist landmine blast in Shyampur under Kirandul police station in Dantewada district in April this year necessitating the Monday’s byelections.
His widow Ojaswi has been living under the perpetual threat from naxals since then.
“I have no money to even pay school fees of my children” she said reflecting the miseries of victims of naxal violence in Bastar, the theatre of leftwing extremism in the country for last three decades.
She had visited house of her Congress rival Devti Karma, widow of Mahendra Karma slain by naxals along with 26 other Congress leaders in May 2013 maoist ambush on a Congress convoy in Jeeram Ghati in Bastar district, to express her sympathy with the latter before filing her nomination for the byelections.
Devti had also reciprocated the gesture by Ojaswi. Devti had won Dantewada seat in 2013 Assembly elections riding on the sympathy wave generated in the wake of killing of her husband by Maoists.
“Both the rival candidates are banking on sympathy votes for being victims of naxal violence,” local Congress leader Avdesh Gautam said.
◗ Devti had won Dantewada seat in 2013 Assembly polls riding on the sympathy wave generated in the wake of her husband’s death.