BHOPAL: With elections fast approaching in Madhya Pradesh, sitting Congress MLA from Nagod Assembly seat Yadvendra Singh and former MLA and current BJP Lok Sabha member from Khajuraho Nagendra Singh are spending sleepless nights. This, not owing to the threat from the BSP, but due to medico-turned-politician Rashmi Singh Patel (31), who is Satna panchayat vice-chairperson.
This 2010 Bachelor of Dental Surgery graduate from Jabalpur plunged into politics in 2015. She first became a district panchayat member from Uchehra and was later elected as the district panchayat vice-chairperson.
The doctor, who has been holding medical camps across Nagod Assembly segment for the last two years, feels that politics is not just the preserve of established political parties like BJP, Congress and others.
The young dentist forayed into politics in 2016 when she joined the BJP and wanted to contest polls on a party ticket.
But with the saffron party denying her a ticket, she decided to contest as an Independent. Rashmi was subsequently expelled from the party. If sources close to her are to be believed, all kinds of pressure tactics, including a threat of probing the assets of her father-in-law, a state government official, in BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh was exerted on her to back out in favour of the BJP candidate.
But she was undeterred. “I’m here to win and serve the youths who neither want the Congress nor the BJP, but want someone who has no party lines and only works for their welfare,” says Rashmi.
Rashmi is primarily focusing on her strong connect with villagers as ‘Doctor Didi’ and relying on door-to-door campaigns and holding youth panchayats across the constituency.