Her one son runs a village tea shop, and the other son is a garage hand; she and husband own less than one acre. About 60 years ago, she had dropped out after class three, and today can read and barely write Odiya. But, she has made several thousands in Aska region end the practice of 'Ganjam salute'—a derisive term for the nightly sight of several hundred people crouching by the road to relieve themselves and jumping up to cover their shame when motorists' headlights fall on them.
Pramila Bisoi is no Swachch Bharat volunteer of Narendra Modi; her leader is Naveen Patnaik, the Biju Janata Dal chief minister of Odisha, who wants her to represent his old seat of Aska in Ganjam district, in the next Lok Sabha.
The 68-year-old Pramila is the mascot for Naveen's new women empowerment revolution. He has given a third of his party's Lok Sabha and assembly seats to women. Not to wives, widows and daughters of powerful political families, but to true wielders of naari shakti (women power) in the villages. He chose Pramila, ignoring the claims of two princesses, for the Aska seat wherefrom he had launched his political career two decades ago and which had also sent his father Biju Patnaik to the Lok Sabha.
Pramila had been active in the women's self-help movement in Ganjam where she was spreading awareness about thrift, sanitation, hospital childbirth, vaccination, school education, greening of the villages, protection of peacocks, water conservation and flood management. “Every two or three years we have a flood here,” she said in an interpreter-aided chat with THE WEEK. “That is one of the first things I want to raise in Parliament. Then there are issues such as lack of hospitals and the plight of farmers.”
Her principal opponent, BJP's Anita Subhadarshini, is her antithesis. Anita, 48, holds a master's in political science and a law degree, and owns assets worth rupees one crore. Her father Rama Krushna Patnaik aka the 'tiger' of Ganjam, had been a cabinet minister.
There is a third candidate, Rama Krushna Panda of the CPI, who is contesting with the support of the Congress. The CPI had won Aska in 1971, but the seat has been with the Congress since 1977. In 1996, Biju Patnaik won it for the Janata Dal with the CPI's support. His death led to the 1997 bypoll, which Naveen won. Aska has been with the BJD even after Naveen gave up his Lok Sabha life and became chief minister. His Hinjili assembly seat is one of the segments of Aska.