SANJANA JATAV.THE DALITS QUEEN OF INDIA.2024.

THE YOUNGEST DALIT QUEEN OF INDIA.2024.Dr AMBEDKAR WON THE ELECTION.2024.

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Big win and victory jig later, youngest Dalit MP: ‘Like moving a mountain’

Among the many videos that went viral on June 4, the day the results for the general election were announced, one stood out — that of 26-year-old Sanjana Jatav, a Congress leader and the youngest Dalit parliamentarian to be voted in this election, dancing uninhibited to the song Rajasthani song ‘Chori tane kariyo Bharatpur jaam’ to celebrate her victory.

“It wasn’t planned,” Sanjana, who beat BJP’s Ramswaroop Koli by over 53,000 votes to win the Bharatpur Lok Sabha — part of the home district of Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma and a BJP seat since 2014 — tells The Indian Express. “After the results, party workers were waiting with a DJ and so I began dancing.”

Since her victory, Sanjana has been busy entertaining a steady stream of visitors who trickle into her office at Kherli village despite the unbearable heat to meet their new MP, “madamji”. Her head covered with her pallu, Sanjana attends to each visitor personally — she appreciates the significance of her victory, which comes months after she lost the 2023 Assembly polls from Kathumar by just 409 votes.

“It was a tragedy,” the young mother of two says between visitors. “I refused the ticket for Lok Sabha initially but Congress leaders insisted. So, I took it as a challenge and put everything into winning.”

This victory is especially sweet given how she fought the polls. With funds quickly drying up, she had to fall back on supporters to chip in for the campaign as she took on the might of the BJP machinery.

“Our opponents had money power and we had the power of the people,” she says. “Many of our vehicles that were taken by the administration. Police tried to interfere in our campaign. Our vehicles were followed. BJP leaders called on local Congress leaders and sarpanches to support them. Fighting this election felt like trying to move a giant mountain”.

Born in a lower income family in Alwar district’s Bhusawar town, Sanjana was 18 when she married her husband Kaptan Singh, a 32-year-old constable in the Rajasthan Police. Although she would have liked to study further, she fell in line with her family’s plans to get her married. However, she lucked out — her husband’s family was supportive of her ambitions, and she got an LL.B. degree from Lords University, Alwar.

In 2021, Sanjana won the Kathumar zilla parishad election. Even then, it was her in-laws, particularly her mother-in-law Rambati, who took charge of her two children — a son, now 6, and daughter, now 3.

“I could have never contested elections without the support of my mother-in-law. Now, after becoming an MP, I’m planning to move my children to Delhi or Alwar so I can be closer to them. I don’t want nannies to take care of my children. I want a healthy work-life balance,” she says.

After the election, the MP-elect and her husband travelled to Delhi to meet the Congress high command. She also went to see Parliament and was moved by the experience.

“The feeling of walking into Parliament for the first time is precious. Officials gave me great respect,” she says.

Back at Kherli village, she insists on not keeping her guests waiting. “When I was in Delhi before the assembly polls, I had to wait for up to four hours to meet senior political leaders. I know what it’s like, sitting in the waiting area,” Sanjana says.

Among these guests is an old villager she refers to as “Nanaji” (grandfather). The conversation lasts exactly two minutes — she touches his feet, enquires after his family and asks him to stay for tea. He gives her a `50 note — his blessings — and departs.

“This is the love that made me MP,” she says with a smile.

Sanjana says it was her father-in-law Harbhajan Singh Jatav, a local government contractor, who encouraged her to join politics, having harboured some ambition to contest the urban local body elections himself. So in the 2021 local polls, when Ward No 29 of the Kathumar zilla parishad, became reserved for women, he encouraged his young daughter-in-law to try her luck.

In 2023, Sanjana came to the notice of Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra for her efforts to help organise two significant party events — the Bharat Jodo Yatra and the ‘Ladki Hoon Lad Sakti Hoon’ campaign. She eventually came to Delhi to meet central leaders and lobby for a ticket for the Assembly polls.

“After a month of meeting several big leaders, I was given a ticket,” she says. “We gave it our 100 per cent in the elections but luck was not on our side.”

The Lok Sabha polls were no cakewalk either. Apart from spending hours away from her children, facing the BJP meant she had to deploy monetary resources that weren’t always at her disposal. It’s here that her supporters came in handy.

She says of the campaign: “It was tiring, and having a low budget meant that we had to arrange for cars on our own. Luckily, there were people who gave them to us for free and with petrol. Some even chipped in by providing food and refreshments, or organising events for us. I’m thankful for their support”.

At home, Sanjana’s 55-year-old mother-in-law Rambati is feeding her toddler granddaughter. She’s promised her MP daughter-in-law that while she carries on her political duties, the children will be taken care of.

What will Sanjana’s priorities as MP be? The youth, specifically the rising mental health issues among them, will be her focus, as will ensuring good infrastructure and better educational facilities for Bharatpur. “I have visited so many village panchayats that now I know the problem people are facing. I want to work towards bettering the lives of my people and my age will not be a hurdle,” she says.

Our Congratulations and Greetings to Sanjana Jatav.

Sivaji.

UT News.