Maharashtra has got a Bengali-speaking corporator – as municipal councillors are called in the state – in Mira Bhayander on the outskirts of Mumbai.
The 47-year-old Jaya Dutta’s victory in the local body polls, the results of which were declared on Friday, comes at a time when Bengali-speaking people have come under attack and labelled as Bangladeshis in several states including Maharashtra.
“I was born and brought up in Bhandup [a Mumbai suburb] . Having spent all my life in Mumbai I can speak Marathi fluently. At the same time I am also proud of my lineage. Why should I be afraid of speaking in Bangla,” Dutta told The Telegraph Online on Saturday.
She admits to initial troubles when her name was announced among the four BJP candidates from Ward No. 2 of Mira Bhayander Municipal Corporation in Thane district.
In the 95-member civic body, there are 23 wards with four corporators and one with three.
Dutta won by a margin of over 7,000 votes.
“Since I spoke in Marathi, people gradually came to realise I am as much a Mumbaikar as anyone else,” she said.
Till her poll victory, Dutta was the principal of Mother Teresa High School and Junior College on Navdhar Road in Mira Bhayander.
“I am an educationist. I come from a middle-class family far away from the world of politics,” she said.
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Her father used to work as a foreman in the erstwhile GKW, a major engineering company which started in Howrah over a century ago. She did her post-graduation in commerce and then completed a bachelor’s and master’s in education and opted for a teaching career.
“I am also trying to complete my PhD,” she said.
Her husband, Rathin, born in Calcutta’s Behala and raised in Mumbai, has been a BJP activist for three decades in the Mira Bhayander belt and is a district-level general secretary in the party’s Thane unit.
“I wanted to contest the polls this time. I have put in so many years for the party. When I did not get a ticket, I requested that my wife be fielded instead,” said Rathin Dutta.
A day after her poll victory, Jaya Dutta was back in her school. She said education remains at the top of her agenda for her constituents.
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“A proposal from our local MLA, Narendra Mehta, has been pending for years. The dropout rates in the municipality-run schools is alarming. Not everyone can afford private education. My focus will be on school education to ensure each and every child in my ward attends school,” she said.
“Funds under the Centre’s skill development programmes do not reach people from the economically weaker section. These things have to be improved.”
Bengal’s leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari sent out a congratulatory message to her on Friday.
Asked if she would campaign for the BJP nominees in the upcoming Bengal Assembly polls, Jaya replied: “I would love to. But there are family concerns as well as the board exams for classes X and XII will be happening around then. I am yet to figure out how to juggle between my role as an educationist and a councillor.”