A father in Maharashtra has been arrested for murdering his seven-year-old daughter to meet eligibility requirements for contesting local panchayat elections - a horrifying case that exposes how population control policies can intersect with patriarchal values in deadly ways.
Santosh Dhakane, 42, was arrested Thursday in Beed district along with a former village council head who allegedly helped plot the murder. Police say Dhakane poisoned his youngest daughter, Vaishnavi, to reduce his family size from three children to two - the maximum allowed under Maharashtra's two-child norm for panchayat candidates.
A billion people aren't a statistic - they're a billion stories. Vaishnavi was in Class 2. Her teacher said she loved drawing. Her notebooks, recovered by police, were filled with crayon sketches of her family - including the father who killed her to run for a position that pays ₹3,000 per month.
Maharashtra is among 18 Indian states with two-child policies barring people with more than two children from contesting local elections. Implemented in 2003, the law was intended to promote family planning and population control. Critics have long warned it could create perverse incentives.
This case proves them tragically right.
According to the police chargesheet, Dhakane had been planning to contest the upcoming sarpanch (village head) election in his village of Ambajogai. With three children - two sons aged 12 and 10, and Vaishnavi - he was ineligible. Police say he consulted Vishwas Kamble, the former sarpanch, who suggested he "reduce" his family size.
The two men chose Vaishnavi because she was the youngest and, investigators say, because as a girl, she was considered more expendable in the family's calculation.
On January 28, while his wife was visiting relatives, Dhakane mixed rat poison into Vaishnavi's milk. He waited three hours before taking her to a hospital, telling doctors she had accidentally consumed poison. She died en route.
The crime unraveled when Vaishnavi's mother grew suspicious of her husband's insistence on a quick funeral and his sudden decision to file election papers the next day. She approached police, who found poison residue in the kitchen and recovered deleted WhatsApp messages between Dhakane and Kamble discussing the "plan."
Legal experts say the case raises fundamental questions about two-child policies. Dr. Prabha Kotiswaran, law professor at King's College London who studies Indian reproductive rights, told The Times of India that such laws disproportionately affect marginalized communities and create what she calls "eligibility-based violence."
"When you make family size a criterion for political participation, you put pressure on families to make impossible choices. In patriarchal societies, that pressure falls most heavily on daughters," she said.
The Supreme Court of India has previously upheld two-child norms for local elections, ruling they serve the state's population control goals. However, this case may force a reckoning with unintended consequences.
Women's rights groups are demanding the policy be scrapped. Varsha Deshpande, chairperson of the Maharashtra State Women's Commission, called the murder "a direct result of a law that values political ambition over human life, and sons over daughters."
The Maharashtra government has not commented on whether it will review the two-child norm in light of this case.
Dhakane and Kamble are being held without bail on murder charges. If convicted, they face life imprisonment. Vaishnavi's mother has taken her two sons and returned to her parents' home in a neighboring district.
The panchayat election in Ambajogai will proceed as scheduled next month. The sarpanch position that cost Vaishnavi her life remains vacant.
