This tribal girl is Cuttack’s youngest deputy mayor | Fusion - WeRIndia

Nobody ever imagined that this tribal girl would become deputy mayor one day. This 21-year-old slum dweller became the youngest deputy mayor of Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC).

Damayanti Majhi was born in Balisahi slum in Cuttack. She has been elected as the city’s first tribal deputy mayor.

She lost her father in 2017. Her mother worked as a daily wage worker and educated them. Damayanti also supported her family by tutoring children in her slum while continuing her studies.

Surprisingly, she was never involved in politics. But, the ruling party believed in her hard work, intelligence and knowledge on local issues. Hence, she was given an opportunity and elected unanimously in the recent polls of CMC. Thus, Damayanti became the youngest deputy mayor of the CMC. She is the youngest corporator of the city as well.

Damayanti expressed her gratitude to chief minister Naveen Patnaik for allowing her to contest in the elections for the deputy mayor post.

She says that there are many problems in the city. Being a resident of a slum, she is aware of all those issues. Some of these include poor drainage, waterlogging, erratic water supply, traffic issues, street light issues etc. Damayanti wants to focus on these issues to resolve them. She has sought the cooperation of people and officials in this regard.

The first and foremost problem she wanted to address is to improve the living conditions of slum people in her surroundings. Her post-graduation exams will be held soon. So, she is also focusing on her exams. After completing her course, she wanted to involve in politics in a full-fledged manner.

Image Credit: Soumyajit Pattnaik on Twitter

Image Reference: https://twitter.com/soumyajitt/status/1511942939122946052