With a Blackberry in her hand and a laptop slung on her shoulder, it’s another day at work for Mahua Mitra. Only it’s in the villages of West Bengal. The former JP Morgan Vice President left her job in London last year to soldier on in the Left-dominated villages of West Bengal as Rahul Gandhi’s aam aadmi ki sipahi. The scheme was initiated by Rahul Gandhi to popularise projects launched by the UPA Government such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) among the people, and, like the Congress’s ‘talent search’, is an effort to seek out and infuse new talent into the Youth Congress.

“Do all of you have job cards? Did you get 100 days of work from the panchayat? Do you know what RTI is? Do you know Rahul Gandhi, son of late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi? I am here on his initiative to make you all aware of your rights and also to learn about your problems,” says Mitra, talking to villagers at Daspara in Ruipur village panchayat in Nadia district.

The Congress may not have much of a presence in Bengal but Mitra says that doesn’t bother her. “Sometimes I get Congress workers in villages, but mostly I don’t. But that does not matter. I am not here for election campaigning. I am here to tell villagers about the various schemes for them. In many areas, villages get only 5 to 10 days work in a day,” she says, before going on to address another gathering, this time in Amghatti Musolmanpara. When she finishes speaking, the villagers have many questions and complaints for her.

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