Not without her gun

LUCKNOW, MAY 1 : General secretary of the Uttar Congress Committee’s Dalit Cell Rani Kanaujia never appears in public without a revolver—on Wednesday, she was photographed at a rally of the party’s Dalit cell with one. She’s been in village politics for long but decided she needed protection once she won the block pramukh election in Haidargarh in 2001.

“This was not a seat reserved for women. I defeated the men,” says Kanaujia.

Her victory sent her shopping for a Rs 65,000-revolver to the Indian Ordinance Factory in Kanpur.

“My husband knows I am in politics. Can’t he spend Rs 65,000 to protect my life?” she asks. Her husband is a senior auditor in a district co-operative in Rae Bareily.

Though she bought the revolver in 2001, she took to flaunting it after she faced a no-confidence motion as block pramukh in 2002. “It was for the first time that a co-confidence motion was moved at the block level in Uttar Pradesh after the implementation of the Panchayati Raj system. It was then that I decided to carry my revolver with me to tell my opponents that I was no ordinary woman politician,” says Kanaujia, who belongs to Bijnor.

Well, if the revolver is taking care of Kanaujia, she too is taking good care of it. The 35-year-old cleans it every week, after a round of practice. “Haath regularly saf karti hun revolver chala kar. Lagbhag cheh goli to kharch ho hi jaati hai (I practice regularly and use up at lease six cartridges),” says Kanaujia, who worked as a swasthya sewika in Haidargarh’s Nehru Yuva Kendra before moving to politics. She contested and won the elections for gram pradhan in her village Bhikra in 1994.

The success encouraged her to contest the polls for the member of kshetra panchayat from Chaubisi region of Barabanki district in 2000. She won and next contested the block pramukh election.

After moving from village to block politics, Kanaujia set her sights on state politics, contesting the Sidhaur seat on a Congress ticket last Assembly elections. “It was a new area for me and I couldn’t win,” she says. But the mother of five sees the loss as a learning experience.

Next Kanaujia wants the state Government to give women priority while issuing gun licences.

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