Rajkot: Taking leaves from popular television soap, Balika Vadhu, one progressive hamlet in Kutch has worked to empower village women through Balika Panchayat.
While the series exhibits child wedding diseases, Panchayat aims to deal with the problem of young women – from the girls, by girls, for girls! Kunariya Village, about 18 km from Bhuj’s head office, has a population of around 4,000 people.
Young females from the village, between 10 and 21 years, will oppose this unique election for Pancrayat.
The ‘Only Woman’ Board will run parallel with the adult village version, but discusses problems related to teenage girls and women only in the village.
Scheduled to be held on Monday, the election for Balika Panchayat is also a carefully contested affair.
All villages were preparing in poll mode with demonstrations, the door-to-door campaign heated while the voter meeting turned out to be a large attraction for the past week.
The results will be stated on the same day.
Eight candidates are competing to post Sarpanch, including four have attracted their nomination.
This contest will be among Bharti Garva (20), Rubina Node (19), Trushali Suthar (20) and Afsana Sumra (17) and every individual candidate is busy convincing 450 strange voters in the village why he must be subject to power.
Sarpanch from the village, Suresh Chhanga told Tii, “the concept is that these elected girls will bring a scheme that will discuss the problems of women and women in the village.
Another idea is to prepare for future women leaders.” Chhanga described that while women enjoyed a reservation 50 Percent in Panchayat, chosen women’s decisions are often overshadowed by their husbands.
When these girls can oppose real elections, they will understand their constitutional rights and responsibilities and will not let others make decisions on their behalf, he added.
Bharti Garva, one of the candidates for the position of Sarpanch, is doing graduation.
“Other candidates are my friends and we only learn the democratic process.
If I win, I want to make sure that women must stay physically and mentally too.
They must get nutritional food and use education at least until graduation.
I want to focus on reducing The dropout ratio of the girl’s school, “he said.