Shimla, April 30 -- About a year back, when Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu made the first move to name woman Congress leader Anuradha Rana as party candidate for the Assembly bypoll in the state's tribal district of Lahaul-Spiti, no one had any idea what was going across his mind.
Rana became the second woman to win the assembly poll here, after 1972 when the constituency had elected its first woman MLA in 1972.
This week, the district became the finest example of women-led governance from politics to administrative transformation-a rare distinction in Himachal Pradesh's high-altitude district, which shares its international borders with the Tibet region.
Kiran Bandana, a firebrand young bureaucrat of 2016, has been posted as Deputy Commissioner Lahaul Spiti, in less than two months after Sukhu had sent IPS officer Ilma Afroz as the new SP of this district.
Lahaul-Spiti falls under the Mandi Parliamentary constituency which has already elected Bollywood Actress Kangana Ranaut to the Lok Sabha in the 2024 poll.
To add to the colours , the district also has Beena Devi as its Zila Parishad Chairperson.
Two other young women civil servants Akanksha Sharma, a Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Keylong and Shikha, Sub-Divisional Magistrate Spiti are already making their devout here.. Sukhu, when contacted, said: "This is a new era of governance and he had, in his mind, a plan to make one of the state's districts an all-women governance entity in the country. It's Vyvastha Parivartan."
The Chief Minister says it will be an example in the state's history to see women empowerment in a real sense.
Lahaul-Spiti is a district having a higher women population. In earlier times, before the commissioning of the Atal Rohtang Tunnel, the district used to remain cut off from the rest of the world for almost six months. Many families used to migrate to Kullu before the snowfall of the winters, when Rohtang pass used to get blocked.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.