The battle in Arunachal West, one of India’s largest Lok Sabha constituencies by area, is expected to be between Union Minister Kiren Rijiju of the BJP and former Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Nabam Tuki of Congress.
But as the campaign crescendos to the day of polling on April 19, the buzz is around Toko Sheetal, who defied naysayers to walk more than 2,000 km to Delhi in 2022 to make a statement against “large-scale corruption” in the Frontier State and earn the “iron lady” tag.
The Assam-based Gana Suraksha Party (GSP) has fielded her from the constituency encompassing 33 Assembly seats and areas beyond 15,000 ft above the mean sea level. She is the only woman among candidates in the two Lok Sabha seats — the other is Arunachal East — in the State while eight women are contesting the simultaneous Assembly polls, one of them having won her seat unopposed.
