New Delhi: Twenty-one-year-old Arya Rajendran of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has created history by becoming the country’s youngest mayor.
Ms Rajendran had bagged 2,872 votes to become a mayor of the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, winning from the Mudavanmughal ward. Thiruvananthapuram Mayor K. Sreekumar from CPI(M), suffered a shock defeat in the polls, NDTV reported.
This was also the first time Rajendran could vote in the local body elections.
“Even though I was not entitled to vote in the last local body elections, but I still was actively campaigning for the party candidate. That experience and exposure helped me this time as well. I have been actively involved with the party during election campaign in the past,” Rajendran told NDTV.
The News Minute was the first to report on the possibility after the CPI(M) district committee, which held a meeting on Friday, recommended her name. Rajendran is a Bachelor of Science student at the city’s All Saints College.
In Kerala, 50% of local body seats are reserved for women. Civic bodies are headed by women on alternative terms.Rajendran is the state president of Balasangam, a children’s organisation affiliated to the CPI(M), according to TNM. The report said that she is also a state committee member of the Students Federation of India (SFI), the students’ organisation of the CPI(M).
According to the Hindustan Times, Rajendran is the daughter of an electrician and an LIC agent. Her single storey house doesn’t have a motorable road, the report says.
Rajendran is not the only young person elected in the latest polls in Kerala. Indian Express has reported that 22-year-old Johnys P. Stephen, a Masters student, is now set to chair Kerala’s Uzhavoor panchayat, where he won as an independent candidate.
Featured image credit: Twitter/@pycpim