A young woman sarpanch from Chhattisgarh's Bilaspur district is the candidate of the Gondwana Gantantra Party (GPP) from the high-profile Marwahi constituency for the assembly polls, due later this year.
Though the Election Commission is yet to announce the poll schedule, the GGP has decided to field Ritu Pandram from Marwahi seat, the traditional bastion of former chief minister Ajit Jogi since the formation of the state in 2000.
"I will try my best to get support from the people. The way they had shown confidence in me during the panchayat elections, I hope the response would be the same in the assembly polls too," Pandram told PTI.
"It will not be a cakewalk for me as I will have to contest against the bigwigs of politics (the leaders of the BJP and the Congress), but every cloud has a silver lining," said the 26-year-old.
The daughter of a farmer, Pandram, who has done her M.SC in Biotechnology, was elected as Sarpanch of Saarbahara village, her native place, in Gourela development block of Bilaspur district in 2015.
Located about 225 kms away from Raipur, the tribal-dominated Saarbahara village has a population of about 9,000.
Stressing that her focus is to educate children and improve the condition of schools in the area, Pandram said," Since I became sarpanch, people from my panchyat as well as from other villages started coming to me with their problems. They told me how this area has been neglected in terms of development works".
"I don't say that the BJP and the Congress have done nothing in the area...probably both the leading parties have failed to match the expectations of the people. I feel there is a need to lay the foundation for a brighter and prosperous Marwahi," she said.
When asked about her campaign plans, Pandram said the door-to-door campaign is the only way to reach to the people and understand them.
She said modes like the social media might not be effective in the tribal belt.
"Still I will still try to connect to youths in the area through Facebook and Whatsapp," Pandram said.
Chhattisgarh GGP president Nand Kishore Raj said Pandram perfectly matched his party's expectations of the ideal candidate, who is young and educated.
"We have the support of the villagers and tribals in the area but so far could not transfer this support into votes. We have been holding regular programmes there. The GGP has made inroads among tribals. We know that it is not easy to win assembly polls, but we are trying our best," he said.
He said Pandram was nominated because she has impressed the locals with the development works.
In Marwahi, which is a part of Korba Lok Sabha constituency, Pandram will face the challenge from the candidates of the BJP, the Congress, and the newly-formed Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (J) of Ajit Jogi.
After becoming the first chief minister of the state, which was carved out of Madhya Pradesh, Ajit Jogi, then in the Congress, had won the Marwahi (ST) seat in 2003 and 2008.
In 2013 polls, his son Amit won the seat on the Congress ticket.
However, in January 2016, the State Congress expelled Amit from the party for a period of six years after some audio tapes purportedly revealed that the bypoll held for Antagarh Assembly seat in 2014 was fixed.
Later, Ajit Jogi quit the Congress and floated the Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (J).
The GPP was formed in 1991 to plead for the rights of the Gondi people, and to establish a separate state of Gondwana.
In the 2003 assembly polls in Chhattisgarh, the GGP had fielded 41 candidates, but drew a blank. In the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, the party fielded candidates from Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.
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