‘Will provide all the help farmers need’: Aska MP Pramila Bisoyi

It has been just over a month since Pramila Bisoyi’s life, well into its seventh decade, turned on its head. The resident of Chermaria village in Ganjam district of Odisha who won the Aska parliamentary seat on a Biju Janata Dal (BJD) ticket, is in New Delhi — her first visit to the nation’s capital — to attend the Budget session of the 17th Lok Sabha. It’s the longest she has been away from home, but it’s not her family that she misses the most.
Up until she was given the party ticket in April, Bisoyi, a petite farmer with four grown children, managed the mid-day meal scheme in her village’s anganwadi. Young children from nearby villages study there too, and it was Bisoyi’s task to ensure that they got nutritious food. “I would do more than just oversee the meals. Once I finished cooking with others, I would clean the vessels. I helped children cross the road. I would clean their mouths after they had eaten,” she said in Odiya. Her personal assistant appointed by the BJD, Nilamani Patnaik, translated for her.
She tears up recounting how some children wondered if “Pari ma” — as she is called in her village — had died, because they had seen a photo of Bisoyi wearing garlands, quite likely taken while she was on the campaign trail. “The anganwadi workers told the children that I had gone to get more food for them. They miss me, and I really miss them,” she said.

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