Jubilation, jigs and sweets in Kovind's village

As the news of National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate Ram Nath Kovind being elected the 14th President of India flashed on television channels, his ancestral village broke into celebrations.

Villagers, some of them school pals of Kovind, hugged each other and went to the "Patthari Devi" temple in Paraunkh village, built by the father of the President-elect.

Youngsters smeared each other with 'gulal' (dry colour) and broke into jigs to local bands, and a music band, which had composed lyrics as an ode to the success of the President-elect, started belting those out.

Accompanied by a harmonium and local youth to clap and play 'dholak', they danced and sang about the glory, humility and the hard work of Kovind.

Local residents told TV reporters, who had descended on the small village, in Dehat district 110 km from Kanpur, how Kovind was always a hard working boy, who loved discipline right from his formative years. Ladies, who many said were relatives of Kovind, distributed sweets generously among the crowd which was letting its hair down, making the best use of the historic moment.

Some informed that for the last few days, dangling electric wires were being arranged properly, roads were being repaired and drains clogged with garbage were being cleaned in anticipation of "local boy" Kovind's entry into Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Kovind, who mentioned his village Paraunkh in his brief address to the media in New Delhi on Thursday evening after the formal announcement of his election, recalled how during the rainy season, he along with his siblings, would wait for the rains to recede as their thatched roof would not provide much protection from the rains.

His brother and other family members still live in the village. With his public life going full hog in the past few decades, Kovind would rarely come back here, his friends say but add that he, however, never forgot the village. As Rajya Sabha member twice, he got lot of development work done in Paraunkh.

Not long ago, Kovind purchased a four-bedroom house in Kanpur city, in Dayanand Vihar locality, which is now looked after by a house keeper as he shifted to Raj Bhavan in Bihar as Governor.

--IANS

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