Who is MJ Akbar, asks Kishanganj constituency's female voters

Landing at Bagdogra airport 90 km from Kishanganj constituency in Seemanchal North Bihar the Tinder app suddenly explodes into a bevy of attractive women from various ethnicities looking to be swiped right for a potential dateThis is explainable for if you drove left from the airport what would follow is the relatively swanky Siliguri 20 kilometres ahead and hilltowns Darjeeling and Kalimpong beyond Kishanganj in the opposite direction is deeply agrarianrural in comparison And conservative enough that we seriously sound like shehari creeps looking around for women on the street Mahilayen dhoond rahein hai searching for women Excuse me There are hardly any in the chowks and the few who are reticently hiding their faces merely smile back as you ask the pollster question Hawa kidhar beh rahi hai Wheres the wind blowing as against the avoidably intrusive Who are you voting forAn outlier stateThe reason to look for female voters on our first stop in Bihar is because genderwise its an outlier state where 3 per cent more women than men turned up to vote in 2014 the highest in India as against MP or Gujarat where the ratio skewed towards as much as 10 per cent more men Be that as it may we responsibly change track and use good offices of local contacts to help us connect with young firsttime female voters to be interviewed on the sources phones What followed was a series of conversations with Indu Kumari 18 Pinky Kumari19 Amrita Kumari19 Ruma Kumari19 and Roshni Kumari19 from local educational institutes Marwari College BN Mandal University and Saura CollegeThe excitement in their voices over debuting at the pooling booth only matched the carnivallike atmosphere that permeates through areas in and around Kishanganj that goes to poll on April 18 surrounded by loud male chatter at chaishops and tempos advertising candidates through speakersWhat drives votes hereThe young girls had varied responses to issues that would drive their vote whether mentioning Modi Roshni Ruma connected to us through a BJP karykarta those who do well for the city and students Indu Pinky or mahila adhikar womens rights Amrita What they were united in though was a lack of response to one question Have you heard of M J Akbar Sorry M J who Akbar was first elected to the Lok Sabha on a Congress ticket from Kishanganj in 1989 Following a series of sexual harassment charges from his time as a newspaper editor over decades Akbar stepped down as minister of state external affairs from the BJPNDA government in October last yearMahilaon ka soshanThe young women of Kishanganj with the partial exception of one Ruma who had to be gently prompted had however heard of the MeToo movement that stung Akbar They described it variously as being about mahilaon ka womens soshan dhwansh exploitation destruction and voice towards empowering women in public and at work placesThey had also heard of Pulwama attacks but uniformly drew a blank on Rafale As for candidates it isnt uncommon for folk here to not know the individual theyre voting for And so at the streetcorner while Durga Devi cryptically alluded to a party haath Congress another one merely repeated teer teer arrow the symbol of Nitish Kumars JDU aligned with the BJP this timeByculla MLA in Bihar boondocksWhat is Waris Pathan Mumbais Byculla MLA from AIMIM party doing in the hinterlands of Bihar of all places And in particular Kishanganj Because its one of the few constituencies with a remarkable Muslim majority close to 70 This explains that the two most serious contenders Mohammad Javed Congress and Syed Mahmood Ashraf JDUNDA are both Muslims Telanganabased party AIMIM led by Asaduddin Owaisi exclusively represents Muslim rights and fielding candidates at faroff elections such as at Kishanganj is often perceived as a vote cuttercompounding the mix We met Pathan on our flight to Bagdogra He offered to have us over at an AIMIM rally scheduled for the evening in the deep interiors of Kishanganj And yet despite repeated calls and messages through the day that remained unanswered he seemed reluctant to entertain the visit Eh To be fair we did bump into an old ittar seller Ghulam Mohammad who listed Owaisi as the third candidate in KishanganjAlso ReadSenior citizens first time voters show enthusiasm in Lok Sabha electionsCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and also a complete guide on Mumbai from food to things to do and events across the city here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates