While her husband did most of the talking, the only thing that Sapna Anil Gadekar spoke with utmost confidence was that she was here to help people in her ward and solve their problems. Sapna is contesting the BMC elections from ward number 98 in T ward (Mulund) which is reserved for women from the Scheduled Tribe.
This 28-year-old candidate is from the youth wing of the Republican Party of India with an independent symbol of candles and feels that by contesting she has got an opportunity to step out of the confines of her home and know what the outside world is like.
Speaking in Hindi, Sapna said, “Mai yahan pe bachpan se reh rahi hu par mujhe kuch pata nahi tha. Par ab daure karte hue dekha ki log yahan kitni pareshani mein hai.”
Sapna, a resident of Powai Chowk, Jaishastri Nagar, Mulund Colony and from a humble background, is a standard IX pass out from a Marathi municipal school. Her mother is a housemaid while her father works in a steel factory. Anil, her husband, has been an active karyakarta of the RPI youth wing for the past ten years.
Sapna is banking on his experience to give her political career a kickstart, making it seem like she would just be the face while Anil will be the real force behind her.
When asked isn’t having knowledge of her own important sine it is she who could be elected and not Anil, it was Anil who answered, “Haa ye zyada padhi likhi nahi hai par seva karne ka jasba hai isme. Ye itni bhi anpadh nahi ke kuch samajh na sake. Aur mai hu naa madat ke liye. Fir who bhi seekh jaayegi. Waise bhi lokseva ke liye graduation ki zaroorat nahi hai. Aur padhe likhe logon ne kya kiya hai hamare liye?”
Maybe even the BMC feels this way because there are no criteria about educational qualification for a person to be able to contest elections.
Sapna is confident that her will to do good for her people will get them to vote for her. In fact, she already has a plan to implement once she wins the elections.
“The frequency of buses here is very bad and the ones that come are very crowded. School children and working people suffer because of this. So we want to start free bus services from Khindipada to Mulund station. This will be for everybody but mainly for people and children living in the slums,” said Anil, voicing Sapna’s thoughts. Sapna also intends to study further to be able to help people better.