Once an ardent Maya fan,now 25 and a SP candidate

She was denied access to Mayawati. She started a dharna in front of the Assembly and was sent to jail. It was the Samajwadi Party that intervened and arranged legal help for her release 15 days later.

She has been dedicated to the SP since,participating in its programmes. The party has now fielded her from Hapur,a seat held by the BSP.

“The party cleared my name last May,” she says. “In my speeches,I tell people I will be their postwoman and raise their issues in the Assembly.”

Kiran,daughter of Shyam Kor Devi and Ramesh Chandra,who works as a guard,is the youngest of six children,four of them girls. Hapur being 25km from home,she has rented a house to run her campaign.

Her first tryst with politics came when she was visiting her sister Suneeta in Meerut in 2008. Some elderly women approached her,hoping that she,being educated,could help them get their pensions. She helped 250 women fill up forms but “the social welfare officer wouldn’t accept them,saying they didn’t have the funds”.

When the district magistrate too pleaded helplessness,she sat on a fast,calling it off four days later when officials promised to hold a camp within three days. At the camp,however,all but seven of the forms were rejected.

That October,Kiran set off on a bicycle procession to Lucknow and met the OSD to the CM. The latter assured a solution in 15 days,the police sent her back to Meerut,and the deadline passed.

As Kiran kept on staging dharnas,her elders frequently scolded her and she started living with her sister in Meerut. In December,she set off on a padyatra to meet the CM and reached Lucknow in a fortnight. Before arresting them for the dharna outside the Assembly,she alleges,the police beat them up.

It was after their release 15 days later that she learnt about the legal assistance arranged by Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son Akhilesh. She met and thanked Mulayam,and was soon participating in party events.

Once,she tied a rakhi to Akhilesh’s wrist. “The purpose was to drive home the point that Yadavs and Jatavs can come on the same platform,” she says.

The ticket came after she had applied forone,on the advice of a senior SP leader. And the elders in her family,who were once angry about her agitations,are now joyfully helping in the campaign.