Meet Gen Z winners of Rajasthan civic polls who made their electoral debut in Jaipur- Moneycontrol.com

Young candidates continue to form only a small fraction of representatives in Rajasthan's urban local bodies.

Rajasthan's civic polls have thrown up an unexpected trend, with a clutch of Gen Z candidates making their mark in the Jaipur Municipal Corporation elections, according to a report by India Today. Six young winners from the generation have entered the civic body after the BJP and the Congress together fielded 18 such candidates across the city's 150 wards.

Of these 18 contenders, four winners came from the Congress and two from the BJP, the report said. Together, the six form roughly 4% of the elected strength of the Jaipur civic body, a small but symbolically significant slice of the new house.

The Congress had shown greater enthusiasm for young faces, fielding 12 Gen Z candidates, twice the number put up by the BJP, which gave tickets to six, as per the report.

Among the youngest to taste victory was 21-year-old Faiz Hasan of the Congress, who won Ward 71 by defeating 39-year-old Independent candidate Mohammad Salim. In a mirror-image contest, the BJP's Palak Yadav, also 21, won Ward 10, getting the better of 39-year-old Congress candidate Vandana Jakhar.

A particularly sharp generational contrast played out in Ward 115, where 29-year-old BJP candidate Suraj Godiwal defeated 67-year-old Congress veteran Suresh Biwal by a margin of 1,063 votes. The report noted that Godiwal was 38 years younger than his rival, making the win one of the more striking examples of the age divide visible in this election.

The Gen Z wave was not confined to the state capital. In Thanagazi ward of Alwar district, 21-year-old Neha Sharma, a journalist by profession, won on her first attempt at electoral politics.

Sharma said her years spent reporting from rural Rajasthan had pushed her towards public life, wanting to work directly for the people she had long written about. "Kyun na shuruwaat khud se hi ki jaaye? (Why not start with myself?)" she said, explaining her decision to contest.

According to the report, Sharma recalled watching villagers and farmers make repeated trips to Jaipur, often spending hours outside government offices just to get a hearing from elected representatives. She felt reporting on their struggles was no longer enough, which is what nudged her towards contesting the election herself.

Young candidates continue to form only a small fraction of representatives in Rajasthan's urban local bodies. Even so, the results from this round of elections point to a gradual but visible entry of Gen Z into grassroots politics, with Jaipur emerging as the most prominent example of the shift.

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