Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Chandana Bauri from the Saltora Assembly seat in Bankura district of West Bengal scripted history by winning from here in the just concluded elections. She defeated TMC heavyweight Sontosh Kumar Mondal by a margin of more than 4,000 votes.
What makes Bauri's electoral success one of the historic wins in the polls is that she is a wife of a daily wager. The low-profile candidate invited praise from different quarters for her astounding performance.
Bauri's husband is a daily-waged mason. He earns Rs 400 daily. According to her election affidavit, Bauri has Rs 6,335 cash in her bank account while her husband's bank account has just Rs 1,561 cash.
The affidavit showed that Bauri owns assets worth Rs 31,985 while those in the name of her husband are valued at Rs 30,311. Bauri and her husband have no agriculture field. Bauri sometimes also works as a labourer to help her husband. While Bauri studied till Class 12, her husband is 8th pass. The couple has 3 goats, 3 cows and a hut. Both are MNREGA cardholders. Bauri and her husband received Rs 60,000 in 2020 under the Pradhan Mantri Aawas Yojana to construct a pucca house. They invested the fund to make a two-room pucca home.
Bauri had earlier said that she was unaware that the party has given her a ticket. It was her neighbours who told Bauri about her candidature.
"Before the tickets were announced I had no idea that I would be selected as a candidate in the legislative assembly polls. Many people encouraged me to apply for a nomination online, but I did not think I would be able to achieve this feat," Bauri had said during an interaction with ANI earlier in March.
According to Bauri, her husband was a member of the Forward Block and later joined the TMC. He joined the BJP later after being harassed by TMC workers.
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