The civic body elections in Bihar's Gaya have scripted history by electing a woman who has been a manual scavenger for the last 40 years to a top position in government. In the most recent municipal elections, Chinta Devi was chosen as Gaya's Deputy Mayor.
Such a milestone, however, is not new for Gaya. Bhagwati Devi, a woman from the severely underrepresented Musahar group and a stone crusher by trade, was chosen by Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal to represent the Gaya constituency in the Lok Sabha in 1996. (United).
"Gaya is such a place where people seek enlightenment, and it is also the place from where a musahar woman can go to the Lok Sabha. This time the people here have set an example, probably for the entire world, by electing Chinta Devi who used to carry human feces on her head as a sanitation staff when there were few toilets here. This is historic," Gaya's Mayor-elect Ganesh Paswan said.
In addition to selling vegetables, Chinta Devi has worked as a sanitation worker. Former deputy mayor Mohan Srivastava endorsed Ms. Devi and claimed that by winning the race, she had made history. He continued by saying that the residents of the city assist the weak and seek to advance them in society.