Kalavati, the Maharashtra widow who became the face of the farm crisis in central India after Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi visited her hut in Jalka village of Yavatmal district in July last year, will contest the Assembly elections next month as the candidate of a farmers’ welfare group, hoping to highlight the plight of victims like her.

Rahul Gandhi had cited her example during the vote on the nuclear deal in the Lok Sabha, saying India’s many Kalavatis needed electricity to light up their huts. She will now represent the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS), which has been raising farmers’ issues in the region that has seen thousands of farmers killing themselves after being caught in credit spirals following crop failure.

“I became a widow at the age of 50, but there are many women who become widows at 20. They face a lot of problems and are living a life of misery. I want to contest on their behalf and do something for them,” Kalavati told The Sunday Express. She added that she would fight for “many issues like higher price for cotton, gharkul (houses) to the poor, price rise, profiteering by traders at the cost of farmers”.

Kalavati was in the eye of a controversy a few months ago when she was taken by an NGO to New Delhi, where she aired a list of grievances in the media even though it was found that she was receiving a steady flow of aid.

Sulabh International has pledged to give her nearly Rs 30 lakh and has already deposited Rs 6 lakh in her account. The government also gave her Rs 20,000 in cash and a monthly assistance of Rs 625, regularised her encroachment in the village, offered her financial assistance of about Rs 30,000 for milch cattle, to set up a business, and for tin sheets for roofing her shack.

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