The Incredible Story of Chinta Devi

Bihar’s Gaya has been trending for an impressive reason. It has created history by electing Chinta Devi, a woman who worked as a manual scavenger for the last 40 years, as the Deputy Mayor. The recently held municipal polls witnessed Chinta Devi win the election by an impressive margin of 16,000 votes. This is a historical election as Chinta Devi managed to attain high public office despite facing tremendous hardships.

The 60-year-old woman is a widow and swept the floors of Gaya municipal corporation office until two years back. Chinta Devi has even worked as a vegetable seller to make a living. Her three sons are also sanitation workers in the municipal corporation.

Interestingly, Chinta Devi was hesitant to file her nomination initially. But many people, including the sweepers’ union, persuaded her to jump into the fray. She won the elections with her commitment to her work as a sweeper, particularly during the pandemic.

It is worth mentioning that candidates from marginalized communities have won elections in Bihar in the past as well.

Bhagwati Devi, a woman from a highly-marginalised community, was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Gaya constituency in 1996 from Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United). Gaya’s Mayor-elect Ganesh Paswan was all praise for Chinta Devi after the results were announced.

“Gaya is such a place where people seek enlightenment, and it is also the place from where a Dalit woman can go to the Lok Sabha. This time the people here have set an example, probably for the entire world, by electing Chinta Devi who used to work as a manual scavenger when there were few toilets here. This is historic,” Gaya’s Mayor-elect Ganesh Paswan was quoted as saying in his presser.

Chinta Devi’s win indicates that voters of Gaya wanted to break stereotypes and elect worthy candidates to run their civic bodies.

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