BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik’s move of sending 33 per cent women to Parliament has been a grand success with five of seven women fielded by the party, including the youngest nominee and a school dropout, wining LS seats.
BJD candidate Chandrani Murmu, a 26-year-old mechanical engineer, emerged as one of the youngest MPs in the country by winning the Keonjhar Lok Sabha seat defeating the BJP’s Ananta Naik. She is the granddaughter of former Kenojhar MP Harihar Soren.
Seventy-year-old Pramila Bisoyi, who is a school dropout and known in the SHG movement, won the Aska Lok Sabha seat by a margin over two lakh votes defeating her BJP rival Anita Subhadarshini, an Associate Professor with the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) in New Delhi.
Pramila, a farmer’s wife, was the BJD supremo’s first choice of 33 per cent women candidates.
Notably, Aska Lok Sabha seat is the one from which Patnaik had begun his political career by winning it 22 years back.
