She has been known as Pappu Yadav’s wife. However, on a day when everyone was talking about how a nervous UPA had even rounded up jailed parliamentarians like her husband to get the numbers, Lok Janashakti Party MP Ranjeet Ranjan came on her own. Shortly after Parliament erupted over the vote for cash drama, she took the floor and immediately grabbed attention for a speech that she says was delivered from the heart and extempore. Ranjan says she had read up and come prepared with notes on the Indo-US nuclear deal and the Hyde Act, but when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh came under personal attack over two days, her Sikh pride took over. She lauded him in her speech and expressed shame at what was going on in the House. She also flayed the Akalis for asking what Singh had done for Punjab. “Sikhs are ready to fight and die for the country and never demand anything in return,” Ranjan said.Her performance has now made her a star among the Sikh community, not only in the country but also among the wide diaspora abroad. “Apart from Punjab and other parts of the country I am also getting calls from the Sikh community across the world. Everyone is thanking me,” says a pleased Ranjan. Even many MPs were taken by surprise as few had looked at her as anything besides being the wife of RJD MP Rajesh Ranjan, better known as Pappu Yadav. Many didn’t even know she was a Sikh.Ranjan thanks her father and husband for her Parliament performance, saying she owes everything to them. “They have taught me to speak fearlessly and with confidence.”Ranjan recalls that she first met Pappu while she was living with her father, a retired Armyman working as a granthi in a gurdwara, in Patna. Pappu fell in love with her and approached her parents with a marriage proposal. “My father did not want me to marry into a different religion. But I found Pappu to be a very good person, and ultimately my parents relented. Pappu accepted the condition put up by my parents that we will have to marry according to Sikh traditions,” she says.She lauds her husband for giving her the freedom to continue with her religion. The marriage also initiated her into politics, and she insists she dislikes it. “My heart lies with sports. I was a very good lawn tennis player. But fate had something else in store for me,” Ranjan says.She first contested elections as an Independent for an Assembly seat in 1995, a year after her wedding. When she lost, she decided to keep off the political arena. However, after Pappu was charged in the murder of CPI(M) leader Ajit Sarkar, she decided to take the plunge. In the 2004 general election, she was elected as an MP from Saharsa. Having grabbed Parliament’s attention now, Ranjan says: “I was agitated as MPs were mindlessly pointing fingers towards the Prime Minister. I feel that Manmohan Singh is one of the most honest prime ministers India has got and every Indian should be proud of him.”
