Everest Climber Joins Congress, Dropped As Ambassador By Madhya Pradesh

Everest climber Megha Parmar's career as brand ambassador has taken a hit after she joined the Congress and addressed its senior leader Kamal Nath as the "future Chief Minister".

Ms Parmar had joined the Congress on May 9. The next day, she was removed as brand ambassador of the state's "Beti Bachao Beti Padhao" (Save the girl child, educate her) campaign.

Yesterday, she was dropped as brand ambassador of Sanchi by the state's Cooperative Dairy Federation. NDTV is in possession of the letter date May 15, signed by the Federation's Deputy General Manager (Marketing). The letter says the August 2022 contract, which assigned Ms Parmar the role of brand ambassador of Sanchi, is being terminated.

On May 10, the state's Women and Child Development Department had issued an order to relieve all previous brand ambassadors/gender champions of the "Beti Bachao Beti Padhao" scheme, including Megha Parmar.

"My father is a farmer and I have been helping him in dairy farming since childhood," Ms Parmar told NDTV.

"I was working for the promotion of the Sanchi brand, encouraging farmers and small dairies in individual villages to give their milk produce to the state cooperative federation. In June, we were about to start a programme, under which parents of every newborn girl would be gifted the Sanchi Ghee... But all of a sudden, my three-year contract was terminated just because I joined the Congress?" she added.

BJP spokesperson Neha Bagga was candid.

"Megha Parmar-ji has taken the decision to go into politics. She has chosen Congress. As a brand ambassador of various things, she was promoting schemes of the state government. It clearly shows that either she was wrong earlier, or now. She has chosen her political ideology, so she cannot be associated to promote our schemes which are as per our ideology. What's wrong in that if she has been removed?" she told NDTV.  

Ms Parmar, 28, is from Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's home district Sehore. In 2019, she had successfully scaled Mount Everest. The same year, she was appointed the brand ambassador of the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao campaign by the Congress government led by Kamal Nath.