Always ready for a ‘good’ fight, says BSP MLA Rambai Parihar

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.