Kamal Ghorui
KOLKATA: Kalita Majhi, a 37-year-old domestic help turned politician, has scripted an extraordinary electoral journey by winning the Ausgram Assembly seat in West Bengal on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket. She secured 1,07,692 votes, defeating her nearest rival from the Trinamool Congress, Shyama Prasanna Lohar, by a margin of 12,535 votes.Majhi, who once worked as a house help for over two decades in Patra Para, is widely known in her locality for her long-standing association with several families. For one such household, she was considered “like a daughter,” reflecting the personal bonds she built over years of domestic work.
Who is Kalita Majhi?Before entering electoral politics, Majhi worked in multiple homes, managing cleaning, cooking support, and caregiving duties.Her employers describe her as disciplined and reliable, often working from early morning hours. Despite her responsibilities, she remained deeply connected to grassroots life in her village.After being fielded as a BJP candidate, Majhi balanced household work with campaigning for some time before eventually focusing entirely on elections.Her family and son supported her campaign, while she also relied on local party workers to manage outreach activities.Majhi’s campaign centered around issues of women’s empowerment, anti-corruption, and the upliftment of economically weaker sections.She repeatedly highlighted her own journey as an example of how a domestic worker can aspire to public office.“I want to show that a domestic worker can also become an MLA. I will speak for people like me,” she had said during the campaign.Her victory over Trinamool Congress candidate Shyama Prasanna Lohar marks one of the notable constituency-level shifts in the Bengal political landscape.As she prepares to take charge as MLA, Majhi’s journey from domestic work to the legislative assembly has become a talking point in West Bengal’s evolving political narrative.
