Migrants win friends, influence voters to win panchayat poll
The residents of Shankar Colony accorded a hero’s welcome to their young Sarpanch Neha Chaurasia today after she was elected unopposed. Her election came after the writ petition filed by two of her opponents was dismissed by the High Court. Neha, the residents believe, shall leave no stone unturned to turn their locality into a model village.
“Earlier, Neha and her mother were doing it selflessly, now we think that she would be in a better position to solve the problems of the people and bring reforms in the area. She was born and brought up here. She is our child and if she wants to do something substantial for the people of her village, we would definitely be a source of support. It least matters as to who wins, we wanted a sarpanch who possesses the zeal and vigour to serve and work at the ground level,” shared the local voters of her village.
“Neha is a befitting example for our children to emulate. Her qualification and her talent shall definitely be a good inspiration for our children and they would try to follow in her footsteps and become successful. As a sarpanch, we are sure, Neha shall spare no effort to work for her people,” said the villagers of Shankar Colony.
Meanwhile, the stakes are high for Mamta Devi as well, the two-time sarpanch of Ram Nagar. She also enjoys a good rapport with the voters. “Apart from managing her family affairs, she has silently been involved in public welfare and looking into the pending issues. As a sarpanch, Mamta Devi had tried to come up to the expectations of her people to such an extent that she does not need to canvass for votes a third time, no power can stop her from winning by a huge margin,” said the voters of Ram Nagar.
In Tajpur Bet village, Poonam Kumari, a migrant aspirant, is expected to win as she is giving a tough fight to four of her migrant contenders and four local contenders. Similarly, Mukesh Mishra from ward number 2, Kaleem Ansari from ward number 3, Ravi Verma from ward number 4, Sunita Devi from ward number 5, Rakhi Devi from ward number 6 and Poonam Devi from ward number 7 enjoy good support of their people and can give a tough fight to their Punjabi brethren in the panchayat elections this time.
Aman Shrivastav, one of the migrant leaders, said that now it has been almost one complete generation residing permanently in Punjab. “Some of the young children of migrant families have not visited Bihar even once and don’t feel the need to since it has practically nothing to offer. Punjab pulled us from our penury and accorded us a self-sustaining position where we can think of living a respectable life, educate our children, see them working in good positions and improve our economic as well as social position,” he said.
“Such is our bonding with Punjabis that the marginalisation is gradually fading away and never for once have they made us realise that we are in any way different from them. The migrants are contesting since they have their stakes here and they consider Punjab to be their own now,” he further said.
