On the evening of June 4, the video of a young woman―dressed in a sari, her head covered by the pallu―dancing merrily to the beats of the dhol went viral. The 26-year-old was celebrating her victory in the Lok Sabha elections. Sanjana Jatav is among the youngest MPs in the new Lok Sabha, having won from Bharatpur constituency in Rajasthan on a Congress ticket.
Just a few months ago, Sanjana had to deal with the disappointment of losing narrowly in the assembly polls. She had lost the Katumar seat by just 409 votes. Some time later, her father had a sudden heart attack and he passed away, and the family attributes it to the disappointment over the electoral loss. This time around she won from Bharatpur by a margin of 52,000 votes.
Sanjana, who belongs to the dalit community, has come a long way in just three years since she stepped into politics. She had got elected as a zila parishad member in 2021, after she was encouraged to contest by her husband’s uncle, a former sarpanch. Hailing from Bharatpur, Sanjana got married into a family based in Alwar in 2016. Her husband, Kaptan Singh, is a police constable. She got a BA degree and an LLB after she got married. She has two children, a six-year-old son and a four-year-old daughter.
“My family, especially my husband, has been my biggest support and my shield,” said Sanjana. She wants to focus on local issues of Bharatpur such as water scarcity, health care and education. She also wants to help women develop skills that can allow them to earn while working from home.