In Bundelkhand, Madhya Pradesh’s lone BSP MLA Rambai Parihar has earned a reputation of being combative
In Bundelkhand, Madhya Pradesh’s lone BSP MLA Rambai Parihar has earned a reputation of being combative
Damoh
She is known for her frequent run-ins with the officials. She also asserts that casteism is a thing of the past in her constituency in the Bundelkhand region and dismisses serious criminal charges like murder against her husband and other family members as false.
Rambai Parihar, the 44-year-old MLA from Pathariya in Madhya Pradesh’s Damoh, is now the sole representative of the Bahujan Samaj Party in the State after the other BSP MLA Sanjeev Singh Kushwaha (from Bhind) crossed over to the BJP in June this year. Despite the dwindling fortunes of the BSP, she insists that her unflinching support remains with the party, but does not believe in always toeing the party line because “standing with the truth is more important than weighing electoral prospects”.
“I do not like changing parties. Even when I was leaving the Congress after being denied a ticket in the 2013 Assembly polls, I did so with a heavy heart. I have struggled for the people of the constituency and I don’t think I have done anything to lose votes,” she says in front of a handful of residents from her constituency who have gathered in the large courtyard of her bungalow in Damoh.
Each visitor has a specific issue: missing out on the instalment of a government scheme; prolonged wait for a power connection; seeking a portion of the MLA funds for some construction or the battle for compensation for losing a son to an electrical accident in Delhi where every year, labourers from the Bundelkhand region go in large numbers to find work.
She insists that her frequent public display of anger is to seek early resolution of such problems that affect people in her area. In August, for example, she had said that if the local Tehsildar attached any property of a farmer for lone default, the official would not come back safely and she would not tolerate injustice to the farmers.
The most recent of these was her argument with Damoh Collector S. Krishna Chaitanya, a 2013-batch IAS officer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre who accused her of abusing and threatening him. Visuals of Ms. Parihar using strong language against Mr. Chaitanya on September 30 had gone viral. She also faces an FIR in the matter.
“Each time I raised an issue, he had the standard response of ‘ Main check karwata hoon’ (I will look into it) whereas beneficiaries wait for months and years to receive what is rightfully theirs. If raising their voice is a crime, I will commit it again,” she says.
But is it part of a strategy to hog the limelight, as her detractors allege? “If you ask me, I have never done anything with a strategy or plan in life, fighting elections included. Most of what you see are spontaneous outbursts. I am not one of those politicians who discuss matters with officials behind closed doors. If the issue is linked to public interest, why shy away from taking it up in front of people,” she says, switching to her native Bundeli from Hindi.
Be that as it may, over the past few years, as an MLA, she has carved an independent identity of a “maverick”, emerging outside the shadow of her husband Govind Singh Parihar who faces 17 criminal cases and whose family is accused of wielding clout in the area by controlling businesses and having a say in administrative decisions such as transfers. In at least one case of murder, he has been convicted too, according to her associate Digvijay Patel.
Ms. Parihar alleges that all the cases are false and done with the intent of maligning his image.
When she successfully contested her maiden Assembly election in 2018, it meant more than an MLA seat for her. She was one of the two BSP legislators and the seven “others” whose support helped the new government under Congress’s Kamal Nath to form the government and win the trust vote.
Changing ground realities
However, ground realities have changed since then. The BJP government, that was formed after the fall of Mr. Nath’s government in 2020, is more stable now, the party is keen to woo back the support of the SCs and STs, new challengers such as Bhim Army and Jan Adivasi Yuva Shakti (JAYS) have emerged to tap into the SC-ST vote bank and the BSP itself is losing ground not only in the Bundelkhand region of M.P. but even in neighbouring U.P. that was once its stronghold.
But BSP’s lone flagbearer in the M.P. Assembly remains unfazed. “I was and will remain with the BSP. Even when I was expelled for a few months [for a remark supporting the Centre’s Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, a view that she continues to hold], I was working for the party. Had my expulsion not been revoked, I would have been in the party. It’s the principles that matter,” she insists.
