Beed (Maharashtra), Nov 6 (IANS) The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) candidate from Parli Assembly constituency not only turned heads but also set the hearts aflutter of many young and senior 'bachelors' at his election rallies. MVA ally Nationalist Congress Party-SP's nominee Rajesaheb Shrikishan Deshmukh has promised to become an unlikely match-maker and arrange girls for marriage with hundreds of anxious unmarried youngsters and not-so-young men.

"If I am elected, I promise to find suitable girls for all of you to get married and settle down in life," proclaimed Deshmukh, 56, hoping to play Cupid to many forlorn men living alone without a life-partner.

He said that he was aware of the dilemma of many men in the region - which comprises Beed, parts of Solapur and pockets in Latur and some other districts - which are experiencing a 'shortage' of sufficient numbers of girls of marriageable age for the boys.

Beed has a dubious distinction - it ranks among the worst districts in the state with an adverse male-female ratio (1000/912), against Ratnagiri’s heartwarming ratio (1000/1123) - as per official data of the 2011 Census.

However, since then, the male-female ratio of Beed in many pockets has seen a steady downslide in the past 14 years.

The district was rocked by the infamous 'female foeticide' scandal (2012) involving Dr. Sudam Munde, his wife Dr. Saraswati Munde and their accomplice, Mahadev Patekar, where they had carried out thousands of illegal prenatal tests and abortions of female fetuses that had rocked the country.

After the sensational case blew up, they were arrested, tried and sentenced to 10 years in jail in 2019, but the effects of their shady activities are now being experienced in society, said an expert from Pune, Dr. Ganesh Rakh.

Deshmukh's unusual 'poll promise' has sparked a wave of excitement among the hordes of bachelors even as Dr. Rakh estimated there may be at least 400-600 unmarried men of varying ages in almost every village in the affected regions of the state.

The NCP-SP candidate's poll-sop is not surprising, as he wrestles the MahaYuti ally Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) nominee and Minister Dhananjay P. Munde, as there have been similar alarm bells, instead of 'shehnai', in the past.

Two years ago, over four dozen men, attired in full wedding gear and riding decorated 'ghodis' (mares, used by groom in Indian weddings), trotted to the Solapur Collector office and demanded him to arrange for brides for them!

The stag-grooms' procession was organised by local NGO, Jyoti Kranti Parishad and drew attention to the serious problems of unequal male-female ratio in some pockets of the state with grim socio-economic ramifications.

Rakh – who shot to global limelight by launching “free delivery” of all female infants born at his Pune maternity hospital in 2012 – said that in many villages in Beed, there are many unmarried ‘boys’ ranging from the age-group of 35-45, especially among the Vanjari community.

“Initially, they attempt for suitable matches among girls from the same community, they cast the net wide to other states through ‘Vivah Mandals’ earlier, lately or ‘Lagna Agents’, then explore inter-caste proposals and finally even are ready for inter-religious options, with the accompanying consequences,” Rakh told .

However, the agents are known to charge exorbitantly (around Rs 5 lakh per proposal) for getting doubtful proposals, at times, ‘buying’ poor girls from remote areas of the country and dumping them on the unsuspecting ‘grooms’ – described as nothing but human trafficking in the name of marriage by Dr. Rakh.

The worst is that people from outside are refusing to give their daughters’ hands in marriage in deprived places like Beed owing to its notorious history.

It remains to be seen whether Deshmukh’s gambit of getting his miserable legion of bachelor constituents ‘properly settled’ in life actually brings votes or not.

(Quaid Najmi can be contacted at [email protected])