Wives play an important role in the family and keep the house together, manage finances and care for everyone. We also know a common proverb according to which there is a woman behind every successful man. Wives of politicians this Lok Sabha election are proving that this proverb is completely true. Let us now look at some of the politicians contesting in these elections and roles their wives are playing in it.
Wives as strategists
First, we look at Nandan Nilekani who is a Congress candidate. He remains engaged in campaigning in South Bangalore while his wife takes help of volunteers to plan out his meeting for the coming days. Similarly, Nandan’s opponent for the same seat is Ananth Kumar from BJP and while he attends different rallies, his wife Tejaswini fixes colleges that he will go to next day to gather support of youths since she has good contacts with NGOs, RWAs, women’s groups and colleges.
They also have a charity, which they use for promoting Ananth and by doing many social welfare tasks Tajaswini ensures that her husband gets goodwill of everyone in their constituency.
On similar lines Nandan’s wife Rohini also has a NGO that allocates funds for implementation of sanitation and ground water projects. However, they are not using the NGO as platform to promote Nandan. Rather, Rohini is putting in the effort to network with major opinion makers in Bangalore and garner support for Nandan.
Other examples of wives supporting their husbands in election campaigns include Datty who is former CMs wife. Mr.Gowda is fighting for Banga and his wife comes with him for door-to-door campaigning as well as running campaigns on her own at other places. One more instance is of Anitha who is former CM Mr. Kumaraswamy’s wife and she shifted to Madhugiri for streamlining campaigns for her husband. Anitha is actively touring their constituency to bring in more support for the party.
Lastly, we look at Shatrughan Sinha who is contesting from Patna Sahib and his wife Poonam does several things starting from overseeing the campaign to managing party workers as well as going on door-to-door campaigns along with her husband.
Thus as we can see in this election we have wives of many politicians who are not just moving with their husbands and asking for votes, they are also actively taking part in managing the campaigns and working as consultants for their husbands.
