Two 22-year-olds have become Bihar’s youngest elected mukhias (village council heads) in the panchayat polls held earlier this month, in which thousands of people below their thirties contested for the first time and many even won, as per the results now coming in. The victories of engineering student Ajay Kumar as the mukhia of
Haradaspur Diyara panchayat in Patna district and state-level cricketer Rajiv Kumar as the mukhia of Nadaul panchayat in the same district have come as waves of a fresh breeze into Bihar’s rural governance mechanism, long dominated by elderly men and husbands of elected women representatives.
Interestingly, Ajay Kumar, who is currently a student of a Jamshedpur-based engineering college, had his own grandfather, Vasudev Rai, as one of his electoral opponents. His grandfather, more than double Kumar’s age, managed to garner only 20 votes in the polls. Besides, Kumar also defeated an equally ageing incumbent mukhia, Jagdeep Rai, an ex-Armyman who had won in the last three consecutive polls.
With Haradaspur Diyara panchayat, just 10 km off Bakhtiyarpur near Patna, having little basic amenities for its residents like safe drinking water and proper medical facilities, Kumar finds his victory to be a huge responsibility.
“I will try my best to fulfil the people’s aspirations by using elements of modern rural management,” said Kumar, who plans to pursue his engineering studies while serving the people as the mukhia.
In Nadaul panchayat under Patna’s Masaurhi block, the newly elected mukhia, Rajiv Kumar, 22, wants to bring the vigour of a cricket match into public service. Kumar, locally known as an emerging cricketer who has played in dozens of tournaments at the district and state levels, said: “The needs of rural life in the present times can be best addressed by the kind of planning and enthusiasm found in a cricket match.”