Plea to the president

A tribal village in Uttar Pradesh pins its hopes on President Droupadi Murmu accepting their invitation to visit

- PUJA AWASTHI

LAXMI DEVI VIVIDLY remembers the day she first heard that Droupadi Murmu was the National Democratic Alliance’s president candidate. She was at a meeting of grassroots functionaries when the district panchayat chairman made the announcement. “An electric current went through me. It was as if my insides were lit up. I thought to myself, finally someone like us will occupy the country’s highest office,” she said.

President Murmu is a Santhal, the country’s second-largest tribe. Laxmi Devi, 57, is a Tharu, a tribe much smaller in number. Yet, she feels a deep sense of kinship with the president.

“She is of my caste,” said Devi, the four-time head-woman of Bela Parsuwa village in the Nighasan block of Lakhimpur Kheri, a district 129km from state capital Lucknow.

The last 19km stretch to the tribal village is more potholes and less bitumen. It is not an easy journey. Which is probably why Shashank Verma, the BJP MLA elected from Nighasan, made just one trip to the village to ask for votes. He did promise to remedy all of the villages problems, though.

Devi’s hopes, however, rest with Murmu, whom she has invited to see the plight of the locals. There is, of course, that non-existent road. There is no primary health centre; on good days, the power supply lasts for three to four hours; and there is no school beyond class eight for girls, forcing them to either drop out or migrate.