New Delhi: Congress leader Geniben Thakor crowdfunded her way to victory in the recently-concluded Lok Sabha elections, ending a 10-year jinx for her party in Gujarat by winning the only seat in the state’s 26 constituencies.
Thakor’s win in Banaskantha was buoyed by the consolidation of the OBC-Dalit-Muslim vote, compounding to her status of a giantslayer in Assembly polls since 2017.
Gujarat MLA from Vadgam Jignesh Mevani called Thakor a “rockstar”, lauding her for energising the Congress party in Gujarat. “Not because she won the election, but because of the way she fought it… she was up against BJP’s machinery, banks, dairies, bootleggers, police, contractors… and yet she emerged victorious,” Mevani told ThePrint.
After Thakor was declared the winner on Wednesday, the first thing she said was: “Satyamev Jayate.”
It was an uphill battle for the 49-year-old who had to appeal for money from voters to fund her campaign, after the Congress said it had run out of money. Capital was raised from community leaders, and also by going house-to-house, and village to village.
“We asked for a donation of Rs 111 from each person in Banaskantha… Her victory is truly the public’s victory. She had no leader by her side, but the people of Banaskantha,” said Arvind Kumar Chanchani, a member of Thakor’s campaign.
Thakor belongs to the OBC community, a dominant caste group in Banaskantha. Her opponent and BJP candidate Rekhaben HiteshBhai Chaudhari is from the upper caste Chaudhari community. Chaudhari is a first-time candidate and a professor of mathematics.
Mevani added: “Chaudhari belongs to the resourceful and the rich, so other communities tend to tilt towards the opponent. Thakor’s community usually gets divided, but not so much in north Gujarat. Other communities rallied behind her.”
Thakor defeated Chaudhari by a margin of 30,406 votes.
Known to defeat stalwarts
Thakor has earned the moniker of a giantslayer in the Congress after defeating several heavyweights. In the 2017 Assembly polls, Thakor defeated Shankar Chaudhary, chairman of Banas Dairy and BJP candidate from Vav constituency.
She won from Vav again in 2022 by defeating BJP’s Swarupji Thakor. She was among the mere 17 MLAs that Congress sent to the Gujarat assembly that year.
Before the general elections, Geniben had told The Indian Express that there was pressure on the district administration to not let her candidature go through. “They (her rivals) tried to pressure the collector through a lawyer to get my nomination rejected,” she told the daily.
Geniben is a graduate in political science from Jain Vishva Bharati Institute and has been active in politics for 29 years.
She had supported the 2019 decision of her Thakor community to ban mobile phones and inter-caste marriages of girls. A diktat was issued in Banaskantha’s villages by the leaders of the community. “Since girls are easily controlled because they stay with parents, it is right to ban (mobile phone use among) girls,” she had said.
As Vav MLA in 2018, Thakor also made headlines for demanding that rapists of a 14-month-old baby be burnt alive. She later clarified that she wanted to “calm women down”.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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