IIT alumnus Nihar Ranjan Beura, 50, quit his lucrative job to contest the panchayat polls.
IIT graduates, post graduates, engineering graduates, PhD and law graduates have emerged victorious in panchayat polls in Kendrapara district this time. Though highly educated people chose to keep away from rural polls in the past, this time they had expressed their desire to fight the polls for development of their respective rural pockets. While voters reposed trust on majority of them and cast their votes in their favour, there are also stray instances of highly qualified losing the polls.
An IIT alumnus Nihar Ranjan Beura, 50, had quit his job, forsaking a lucrative career, to fight the rural polls in Dumuka gram panchayat under Marshaghai block. He won the polls for the post of panchayat samity member.
"There is a general perception that people join politics to earn money. I have pledged to prove it wrong. People have elected me thrusting a lot of hope on me. I will not let them down.
My priority will be to ensure effective functioning of canal irrigation network as my area is an agricultural belt. Besides I will do my best so that social security schemes reach the targeted sections", Mr Beura said.
Debabrata Choudhury, 42, who won the Zilla Parishad zone-21, is qualified with LLM degree and Ph.D in human rights law. He was teaching University Law College in Bhubaneswar before plunging into hurly-burly of rural polls.
Dr Choudhury, whose spouse is a judicial officer, said "I was in student politics and was elected president of premier Ravenshaw autonomous college, Cuttack in 1997. Inclination towards politics was imbibed in me since student days. I have now got an opportunity to serve the people. I want to go back to the roots where I was brought up.
"Funds are flowing to rural bodies. My primary concern will be to see that funds are judiciously utilised and not siphoned off", said Choudhury, a native of Khurisia Village in Mahakalpada block.