50 bachelors march to Solapur collector office with ‘band baja baraat’ to seek brides

Pune: As many as 50 eligible bachelors, clad in wedding costumes, riding horses and accompanied with ‘band baja and baraat’ took out a procession, not to a marriage hall but to the Solapur collector office to seek brides, highlighting the issue of skewed male-female ratio in Maharashtra.
The extravaganza was part of a ‘bridegroom morcha’ organised on Wednesday by a local outfit which later submitted a memorandum at the district collector’s office seeking strict implementation of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act to improve the male-female ratio in the state.
As per the National Family Health Survey (2019-21), Maharashtra’s sex ratio was 920 females per 1,000 males. Shilvant Kshirsagar, 29, who runs a dairy business, was among the 50 eligible bachelors seeking brides for themselves. “I am 29 years old, unmarried, and hail from a rural part of Solapur district. We have a family dairy business and also do farming on two-acre land. Every time a marriage proposal comes, the prospective bride’s first question is whether I live in a city and have a job or not,” he told PTI.
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Audumbar Mali, 27, a Mohol tehsil native who does tailoring work and owns two-acre farmland, has a similar story. “I have so far received eight marriage proposals, but the first question from the woman’s family is whether I have a proper job or not. The next question is whether we have adequate farmland. It seems they have higher expectations about a bridegroom’s financial condition,” he said.
The present condition of eligible bachelors not getting brides is also because of the skewed male-female ratio, Mali said.