Ending uncertainty over her contesting polls, Kalavati Bandurkar, whom Congress leader Rahul Gandhi mentioned in Parliament to highlight the plight of debt-ridden farmers in Vidarbha, on Friday filed nomination papers from Wani Assembly constituency as an independent.
Ms. Kalavati, who was hospitalised on Thursday night after she complained of chest pain, was accompanied by a physician and Vidarbha Janandolan Samiti (VJS) president Kishori Tiwari, when she drove in an ambulance to the Assistant Returning officer in Wani to file the papers, Mr. Tiwari told PTI .
Earlier, the 48-year-old widow of a Vidarbha farmer, had said she was being “pressurised to contest elections and was unaware of what election and politics were.”
“I do not want to contest the elections,” she had told a newspaper alleging that workers of the VJS had made her announce before the TV cameras that she would contest the Assembly elections.
Mr. Tiwari, whose VJS is sponsoring her election, had told PTI , “She is saying such things because she does not want to lose financial aid from Sulabh.”
After Rahul Gandhi mentioned her name in Parliament last year, Sulabh International had committed to deposit Rs 30 lakh in Kalavati’s bank account.
Bindeshwar Pathak, founder of Sulabh International had asked Ms. Kalavati to “refrain from joining politics” and render social service.
Ms. Kalavati is backed by RPI-led Republican Left Democratic Front (RLDF).
