Panchayat season 2 carries on the story of Abhishek Tripathi, an engineering graduate who has to reluctantly accept the job of the Panchayat secretary for Phulera village. The series is now streaming on Prime Video.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
A few months have passed since Abhishek’s (Jitendra Kumar) failure to secure the percentile required for admission into the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) through the Common Admission Test (CAT).
Abhishek looks oddly content to Vikas (Chandan Roy) and Prahlad (Faisal Malik), who get worried when they realise he has met Rinki, (Sanvikaa), assuming that sparks could fly between them and spoil things between Abhishek and Brij (Raghubir Yadav), Rinki’s father.
But their worries are put to rest when Abishek shuts down the idea of finding a girl at a village he is destined to leave the moment he secures a better job
Brij is struggling with closing a justified deal with Parmeshwar for sand from their village. Abhishek and the group plan for Manju Devi to handle the deal instead but it backfires when she goes too far and makes him upset.
Abhishek manages to convince Parmeshwar later on, but not before being reminded of his current position as the secretary, which he is only pursuing because he has no choice.
The main road at Phulera remains unfinished and Bhushan (Durgesh Kumar) uses this to criticise Abhishek, claiming that his friendliness with Brij stops him from being neutral towards his negligence.
Affected by this, he tries to avoid going to their house, however, gives in as it’s Rinki’s birthday. When confronted by Brij, Vikas and Prahlad, he reveals what rumours Bhushan has been spreading about him.
They inform him that he is only doing it to help his cause and make his wife Kranti Devi (Sunita Rajwar) the Pradhan in place of Manju Devi, Brij’s wife.
The next time Bhushan tries to insult Abhishek, he responds aggressively and completely shuts him down.
Vinod, a villager, hasn’t received the toilet assigned to him by the Panchayat, and when Abhishek attempts to deliver it himself, Vikas accidentally breaks it.
Using this delay to instigate Vinod, Bhushan convinces him to defecate in the field when the District Magistrate is surveying to get Brij into trouble.
Thankfully, Prahlad and Vikas manage to catch him in time and stop him. To appease him and everyone who defecates in the open, they are allowed to use Brij’s toilet, much to his annoyance.
When the attempt to spread a slogan against intoxication backfired and the driver himself turns out to be sloshed, Abhishek has to house him in the Panchayat office.
Rinki, Brij and Manju visit a restaurant to meet the prospective groom and his family. When they turn out to be at a different restaurant with the same name, and Brij asks them to come to their restaurant, he is called a cheapskate by the man’s father.
When Manju tries convincing them, they refuse to budge, putting an end to the match. Meanwhile, the intoxicated driver prophesies that Abhishek’s low salary will turn him into a drunkard one day, affecting him.
As Abhishek, Vikas, Prahlad and Brij sit down for their usual drinking session, the driver recovers, apologises and leaves. When Abhishek suggests they should drink in control from this point, all of them burst out in laughter at the ridiculous thought.
The CCTV for the Panchayat office is finally installed, but it gives rise to trivial demands, such as tracking goats.
When Kranti Devi’s purple slippers are stolen, she and Bhushan demand to check the footage. It turns out that Manju Devi wore them and left accidentally as the colour was almost the same.
This gives the two the perfect opportunity to stand against Brij and Manju, threatening to file an FIR for stealing.
When Abhishek’s attempt to return the slippers by throwing ends up hitting Kranti Devi, the situation is escalated.
However, Abhishek deletes the footage to erase proof of the slippers ever being stolen. When Kranti Devi tries to return the slippers as well, she is caught by Manju Devi, leading to a fight.
Bhushan and Kranti Devi vow to take revenge and usurp them as the Pradhan of the village. Manju and Brij realise that they need to finish construction of the main road to turn the tide in their favour in the next election.
To execute their plan, Brij, Prahlad and Vikas meet the local MLA (Pankaj Jha) for the funding needed in order to develop the main road.
However, his men instead send them to a protest for the MLA and they end up getting arrested, forcing Abhishek to bail them out.
Rinki is harassed by the man who was considered to marry her. He keeps calling and tries to flirt despite her requests to stop.
Desperate to put an end to this, she asks Abhishek for help, who calls him acting as if he’s a local cop and threatens to beat him up if he doesn’t stop. Scared, he agreed to this. The whole episode strengthens Abhishek and Rinki’s bond.
After Abhishek gets the three out of jail, they meet the MLA again, who reveals it was his plan to save them from jail for publicity and they have messed it up. When Abhishek suggests he should have told them his plan from the start, he mercilessly abuses him and his post as a secretary, considering him unworthy to give him advice.
This leaves him distraught, but he is consoled by Rinki, who reaches out. They get closer.
The MLa tells Brij that he wants to see if he can gather a huge crowd to verify his credibility in the village. Only then he will help.
Abhishek’s friend Siddharth (Satish Ray), who has recently secured a high paying job, pays him a surprise visit. He is excited to see the village life.
Abhishek and the group plan a drinking session out in the fields, but it starts on a bad note as Abhishek brings up the abuse by the MLA, and the fact that Brij did not defend him at all.
To make it worse, he is now planning a prayer meeting to impress the MLA with a gathering, despite what happened
He leaves abruptly with Siddharth. When his mood gets better, they try to drink a few beers together, but a snake has wrapped itself around the bucket.
Brij and the others arrive, but the snake is nowhere to be found. Horrified at this, Sidharth urges Abhishek to spend the night at Brij’s house.
Abhishek apologises to Brij, understanding that he needs the funds for the road and for that convincing the MLA is essential.
Siddharth senses the attraction between Abhishek and Rinki and jokingly suggests that he should focus on his studies.
If you still have doubts about the ending, here’s a detailed breakdown.
Panchayat season 2 ending explained in detail:
Taking a stand
With the prayer meeting around the corner, Prahlad and Vikas take donations from the villagers. Abhishek plans to go home for a few days to avoid the MLA.
Brij is worried that nobody knows he donated Rs 20,000 for the prayer meeting as this would be great publicity for him and help his chances in the next Panchayat election.
However, Bhushan and Kranti Devi predict his move to get the upper hand and offer to provide all the tent and table services for the prayer meeting, effectively saving Rs 25,000 – 30,000 for the village, getting hailed by the villagers as a result.
Rinki meets Abhishek in the market with her friend, and the three have snacks when Abhishek tells them he’s going home during the prayer meeting. Rinki later understands this is because of the MLA.
Rinki’s friend also senses the chemistry between Rinki and Abhishek, but Rinki says there’s nothing between them, however, her friend isn’t convinced.
Brij, Prahlad and Vikas invite the MLA to the event. But he starts abusing Abhishek again and demands he not be present at the prayer meeting.
When Prahlad defends Abhishek, he abuses him as well. Brij finally gets furious and takes a stand. The three are thrown out of the estate.
They stop Abhishek from leaving the village during the prayer meeting now that the MLA won’t show up. They have drinks together, and Siddharth joins them through a video call.
Tragedy strikes
During the drinking session, Prahlad gets a call about his son, Rahul, who is in the army. He is left devastated, having been told that his son died during duty.
As a martyr, the village conducts a ceremony for his death, with army officers giving him a send-off. Prahlad had already lost his wife, and now his son as well.
The MLA attempts to enter the village and be part of the send-off, however, Manju and the women in the village stop him from going further than the Panchayat office.
When he demands to be allowed, Manju criticises him for abusing Prahlad and the others earlier and now only showing up because his son has died.
The MLA claims that funds are hard to procure but Manju responds that while that may be hard, it’s not hard to conduct yourself respectfully.
Considering the kind of man that the MLA is, Manju lets him know that such a person won’t be MLA for long.
Uncertain future
Insulted by the whole ordeal, the MLA exits the village. He considers Abhishek to be the sole reason for the insult he received and orders his transfer.
Prahlad breaks down because of how alone he feels. He lost his parents, wife and only child, and blames the world for being unfair to him.
Brij tells him that all of them are his family. He’s not alone. But he continues to cry as Brij, Vikas and Abhishek try to make him feel better.
In a post-credits scene, Manju and Rinki receive a letter addressed to the Panchayat office, as it was locked. Rinki reads it and tells Manju Devi that it contains a transfer order for Abhishek. This concludes season 2.
In the end, both, the future of Manju and Brij as the Pradhan, and Abhishek’s role as the secretary of the village Panchayat, hang in the balance.
Also Read: Panchayat season 2 review: Well-crafted sequel maintains the humour