Bhubaneswar: They came as strangers to the state, set up home in a land far away from their place of birth and won hearts. Today, these non-Odia women politicians, whose ties to the state began with marriage, have made Odisha their own and become important leaders in their respective parties.Notable on the list are former IAS officer and BJP’s Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha seat nominee Aparajita Sarangi, outgoing Kandhamal MP and BJP state vice-president Pratyusha Rajeshwari Singh and three-time MP and BJP Lok Sabha candidate from Balangir, Sangeeta Singhdeo.For Aparajita, her experience of the state began when she was posted in Odisha as an IAS officer in the 90s. She embraced its culture and its people, encouraged by her IAS officer husband Santosh Sarangi and her in-laws, and is known for bringing about commendable changes in governance.“I first learnt the language because it helped me connect with the people and is extremely important when you are a government servant or a politician. Now, I am more Odia than an Odia,” said Aparajita, who devours Odia books. “My karmabhoomi has become my janmabhoomi,” added the daughter of an English professor and a teacher of the same subject in Bhagalpur. In return, she said she had received the love, affection and cooperation of the people of the state, seniors and colleagues.Her colleague in BJP, Pratyusha Rajeshwari was also accepted with open arms when she stepped into the state’s political arena after the death of her husband Hemendra Chandra Singh, who was then Kandhamal MP, in 2014. The soft-spoken woman set her grief aside, stepped out of her comfort zone and fought the Kandhamal by-election on a BJD ticket within days of her husband’s death.“I used to draw up my husband’s poll strategy. I campaigned for him in 2009 and 2014. I was, as they say, his ‘backroom person’. Politics was not new to me but being a candidate was,” said Pratyusha, who owes her royal lineage to Nepal and has been educated in India.“I agreed to contest because I needed to keep my husband’s memory alive among the people and fulfil the promises he had made. After being elected, I worked on improving road connectivity, infrastructure in schools and colleges and mobile network in my constituency,” said Pratyusha, who was part of the Indian delegation at the International Parliamentary Union, Geneva, in October 2018.Pratyusha has played diverse roles during her tenure as an MP, from raising issues related to women and children as well as nuclear weapons in Geneva to getting close to the Kui Samaj of Kandhamal without her knowing their language.“They refer to me as Rani ma and often ask me to be their leader forever,” said Pratyusha, speaking fondly of the love she has received from the people during visits to her constituency or while campaigning door-to-door for BJD’s candidate in her constituency during the NAC election.Sangeeta, who hails from Rajasthan and who came to Odisha after her marriage with senior BJP leader K V Singhdeo, was also received well by the people, a fact obvious from her being elected thrice to Parliament.It helps that the women have built up a strong connect with the voters. Aparajita, who joined BJP on November 27, 2018, began moving in urban wards and villages from the first week of December to get to know the situation on the ground. She met ‘karyakartas’ to understand the problems people faced. “Bureaucracy is a limited environment but politics provides a person with a bigger canvas to impact lives,” Aparajita, who held the post of BMC commissioner, said.According to Amareswar Mishra, retired professor of political science at Utkal University, these women can no longer be called outsiders. “While Aparajita served in Odisha, Pratyusha and Sangeeta were married into families that had a strong political base in the state. People of the erstwhile princely states are traditionally and emotionally attached to the families of their former rulers,” he explained.

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