From village to Parliament, Bisoi makes a long journey

When the late Ladu Kishore Swain, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) MP from the politically significant Aska Lok Sabha seat in southern Odisha's Ganjam district died of illness just months before the recent Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in Odisha, everybody thought that party chief Naveen Patnaik would select either a senior party leader from the district or a family member of the late Parliamentarian to contest from the important seat, known as his (Patnaik’s) home turf.

The astute chief minister, famous for throwing surprises both at the Opposition as well as his own party men, did neither. Instead, he selected Pramila Bisoi, an ordinary woman from a little known village called Chermaria under Aska block and a member of a local self-help group (SHG) to contest as the BJD nominee in the prestigious seat.

Aska has been represented thrice by the chief minister and once by his late father, the former chief minister Biju Patnaik.

And Pramila, a political greenhorn, did not disappoint, as she went on to defeat her the BJP candidate, Anita Subhadarshini (the daughter of a seasoned politician) by a margin of more than two lakh votes.

From a small village to the Parliament house in the national capital, Pramila has certainly made a journey that is rare in the history of India. The wife of a retired government employee and mother of four (while her two daughters are married, her elder son is a tea seller in the village and the younger one runs a bike repair shop), Bisoi’s foray into politics was unexpected and sudden.

Her journey in public life, however, began almost two decades back when she decided to join a self-help group (SHG) in the village that was supplying mid-day meals to a local school. She worked as a cook. Slowly, she rose to become a leader championing the SHG movement in the area under Mission Shakti, a government of Odisha initiative to empower women, particularly in rural areas.

She did not confine herself to empowering women alone but indulged in other social activities like protecting and creating forests near her village and also played a key role in turning her village open-defection free. Now, it remains to be seen how she performs in Lok Sabha.