Dalit woman is Bellary mayor

MB Maramkal / TNN / Feb 22, 2008, 02:12 IST

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If 'revolution is a whisper', as singer Tracy Chapman would have us believe, it must be happening silently in Bellary.

BELLARY: If ��revolution is a whisper��, as singer Tracy Chapman would have us believe, it must be happening silently in Bellary. Shoba Narayan (34), a dalit, woman and high-school dropout, has been elected mayor of Bellary city corporation.
She heads a body where her husband works as a driver and her father a peon. Her in-laws are retired workers of Bellary municipality.
Shoba is the first dalit woman to occupy the post of chairman of this civic body since it came into being 50 years ago.Articulate in politics, she is, however, unaffected by success. Things fell into place for her after September 2007.
When elections to the corporation were announced, she never imagined that she would get a BJP ticket to contest from Ward Number 16. BJP was a much-sought-after party for tickets.

The Reddy brothers, who are into mining in this region, are believed to exercise influence over ticket distribution. However, a request by her father Amboji to BJP district president Somashekar Reddy clinched the issue in favour of Shoba. Once she got the ticket, she never looked back. Her father��s good work for the ward helped her romp home.
Amboji, who is elated over her daughter becoming mayor, says: ��My close rapport with people of Srirampuram coupled with the support of Somashekar Reddy, brother of MLC Janardhan Reddy, helped her win the election and occupy this post.��

But her election to the coveted mayor��s post has not gone to her head. She is still a caring wife for her husband inside the four walls of her small house in Srirampuram slum, from where she got elected to Bellary city corporation in the elections to ULBs held in September.
��Why I should feel shy about heading an institution where my husband is a driver and father is a peon?�� Husband Narayan accepts his wife as boss. ��Shoba is my boss and I have to obey her orders in the corporation, but inside the house she is my loving and caring wife and I am her affectionate husband,�� Narayan said, thanking the Reddy brothers for helping her win.
Shoba calls BJP a ��party of the masses�� and refuses to dub it as a party of upper castes with a communal tinge. According to her, BJP has changed a lot and problems know no religion or caste.
��Whether a dalit, Muslim or a backward caste, problems are the same for all poor people,�� she says, claiming that the days of BJP being alien to dalits, minorities and backward castes
are over.
maramkal.basavarajappa@timesgroup.com

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