Only 2 women from Doaba make it to House

Aparna Banerji

Jalandhar, March 10

Of the nine women candidates who contested the elections in Doaba, only two made it to Vidhan Sabha. AAP’s Inderjit Kaur Mann from Nakodar and Santosh Kumari Katariaa from Balachaur are the two women candidates from Doaba who have emerged victorious. Mann wrested the Nakodar bastion from two-time Akali MLA Gurpartap Singh Wadala.

Of the nine women who contested from the region, three were AAP candidates (Inderjit Kaur Mann from Nakodar, Many Rana from Kapurthala and Santosh Kumari Kataria from Balachaur); from the SAD, women candidates were Sunita Chaudhary from Balachaur and Bibi Jagir Kaur from Bholath; from the BJP, Poonam Manik from Nawanshahr and Nimisha Mehta from Garhshankar, and from the Congress, Indu Bala was the candidate from Hoshiarpur.

A sarpanch for 15 years, Mann remained a president of the block samiti, general secretary of the Punjab Women Wing of the Akali Dal. In her tenure as sarpanch, she worked for a project to better the sex ratio of girls in her village, ran ecological projects and worked for women empowerment.

Close to Akali Dal patriarch Ajit Singh Kohar, Mann worked for him for years and quit active politics for a considerable time after his demise. In October 2021, Mann had joined the AAP, looking for political change. Inderjit Kaur Mann won by a margin of 2,869 votes in Nakodar.

Balachaur candidate Santosh Kumari Katariaa won the seat with a margin of 4,831 votes. Kataria received 39,633 votes, while SAD candidate Sunita Rani received 34,802 votes, INC’s Darshan Lal came in the third spot getting 31,201 votes.

Hailing from a political background, Santosh remained president of the zila parishad in 2007 and worked with the Congress as well as the SAD in the past. Her father-in-law Ram Kishan Kataria was a two-time MLA from Balachaur. She had joined the AAP two years ago.