UP Elections 2017: Tehri maharani fights tradition in politics, aristocracy

Her saree-covered head, red glass bangles and subdued demeanour belie her undaunted resolve to fight for women, her constituency and the people of the hills.

Maharani Mala Raj Laxmi Shah, the BJP MP from Tehri Garhwal in Uttarakhand, has just won a battle against tradition. She and her husband, Maharaja of Tehri Manujendra Shah, have passed on the royal baton to their daughter, their only child.

“She will now take over from my husband. In today’s day and age, there is no difference between a man and woman. We are all equal,” she told DNA. Her daughter Kshirya Kumari Devi will now be the heir. Generally, the legacy was handed over to the son or even a son-in-law in Tehri.

The family held a ceremony on Vasant Panchami at the palace in Narendranagar to anoint the daughter as heir to the royal legacy.

But Raj Laxmi, the first and only woman MP from Uttarakhand, said politics was a bigger battle for women. “However hard we work, we fail to get the support that others do. And, how much are we heard?” she asked. Describing herself to have been timid and shy, the MP said she always got “pushed back”.

She is among the 10 state leaders in BJP posters, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah overshadowing them, in the state going to polls on  February 15.

Resenting that there has never been a prominent political face from either the Congress or BJP at the helm in the state from the Tehri region, which is considered backward in comparison to Kumaon, she said, “I feel it is a little neglected.”

In New Tehri, a planned city at a height of around 5,700 feet with sculptures of a Hindu deity at every crossing, the BJP MP speaks to people in Garhwali, for just about five minutes.

“Maharani has not done anything good or bad to us. She comes sometimes,” said Vijay Pal, a mobile store owner.  According to him, the sitting MLA fighting as an independent candidate, Dinesh Dhanai, the tourism minister in the Harish Rawat government, was popular in the constituency as he had done work. Tehri is witnessing a triangular contest with the BJP’s Dhan Singh Negi, who came third in the 2012 elections, and Narendra Ramola of the Congress also in the fray.

“The people of Garhwal have a lot of reverence for the royal family. There’s been no corruption charge against them,” said Sanjay Negi, the BJP’s Tehri district president.

The maharaja’s family has been linked to the politics of Tehri for over the past three decades. Raj Laxmi’s father-in-law Manvendra Shah won the seat eight times since 1991. It was with him that Raj Laxmi, who was from Nepal, had started working for the people of the state, particularly the Gorkhas in Dehradun.

Recalling her foray into politics, which she “never liked”, she said that in 1991, when her father-in-law got into politics, he asked her to help him out.. “I didn’t know how to cross the road. Slowly, I started meeting people, talking to them in Gorkhali. As time passed, I started liking it,” she said.

When he died, her husband got a ticket, but lost.  The BJP gave a ticket to Jaspal Rana in 2009, but he lost to Vijay Bahuguna, who was then in the Congress. Later, in the 2013 by-poll, she fought for the BJP and won, defeating his son Saket Bahuguna.