Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Who is BJP candidate and Sandeshkhali survivor Rekha Patra?

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded Rekha Patra, a survivor of the violence in West Bengal's Sandeshkhali. BJP has fielded Rekha Patra from Basirhat, who is a resident of Sandeshkhali. It was she who first raised the voice of the women of Sandeshkhali and all three accused expelled TMC MLA Sheikh Shahjahan, Shibu Hazra and Uttam Sardar are behind bars. Rekha is also believed to have been part of the group that met Modi on the sidelines of his public meeting in Barasat on March 6 and related the plight of Sandeshkhali women to the PM.

Rekha is one of the very few people who received a call from Prime Minister Narendra Modi after getting candidature. In a call with her, the Prime Minister described her as "Shakti Swaroopa", highlighting her fight against the accused in Sandeshkhali. "There are very few people, who consider everyone, even those who have done them wrong. You have a very big heart. The country will take pride in you," the Prime Minister said, adding that she has set a remarkable example for the women in the country. He conveyed his best wishes to Rekha during the telephonic conversation.

Not only was Rekha the first woman to file a written complaint against the accused, she was also the one who gave an in-camera statement to a magistrate. Thirty-something Rekha Patra, a housewife who allegedly suffered torture at the hands of Shajahan Sheikh and his cohorts, walked protest rallies against her oppressors carrying her girl child on her waist alongside scores of other women agitators from the region. Multiple women accused Shahjahan and his aides of "land-grab and sexual assault" under coercion, as a local agitation against the TMC blew up.

Rekha is the wife of a migrant worker in Tamil Nadu. She also promised to work towards creating job opportunities in Bengal and put effective brakes on population migration in search of work. She is also the party's surprise candidate through whom the BJP is trying to make its strongest political statement in Bengal: that it plans to steal the issue of women's safety from under the sails of Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress for the upcoming polls.

"I have no words to describe how I feel," Rekha told reporters here following her conversation with Modi on Tuesday. "I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would be chosen for this task. If I get elected, I would do all that is required to ensure that women of Basirhat do not suffer the trauma we underwent in Sandeshkhali," the political greenhorn said. "I will also ensure that farmlands, forcefully snatched away from our brothers, are returned to them so that they can cultivate their land according to their choice," she added.