Harvard woman elected to Haryana zila parishad

When Haryana - infamous for its skewed sex ratio-decided to fix minimum educational qualification for candidates of the panchayat election concluded in January 2016, nobody would have expected a woman with a Harvard degree to contest the polls and win.

But Yukti Chaudhary's (27) victory is reason enough to change that image of khapland. Yukti who is an LLM in international human rights from Harvard Law School, has been elected to Fatehabad Zila Parishad from ward number 5. The seat was reserved for women. She graduated in law from Campus Law College, Delhi University .

Yukti, who won the poll by a very thin margin of 35 votes after defeating her nearest rival Poonam Sihag, says education will help bring change in the state. "Education will help me and others like me in understanding policies of the state for better implementation of the same," she says, ad ding that her experience in a foreign institute has broadened her perspectives.

Her immediate plan is to resolve drinking water issues in the area. "During the election campaign, I came across the water shortage issue again and again. Now, I will tour all nine villages of my ward again to go through the problems being faced by residents in detail," she told TOI. There are many educated women in our family, but we decided to field Yukti as she is the most educated woman in our clan," says her brother-in-law Akash Godara. When the minimum education clause was imposed by the state government for panchayat polls, people urged the family to field a candidate, Yukti Chaudhary's name came up instantly.

Her grandfather-in-law Mani Ram Godara, who was state home minister during the Bansi Lal government from 1996 to 1999, was also a prominent political figure. Hailing from Jaipur, she married Varun Godara, an assistant jail superintendent at district jail, Sirsa, in December 2014. He was her senior at Stephen's where she did her graduation. After the imposition of education clause, more than 10% sarpanchs are graduates or have higher degrees as compared to 7% in the previous panchayat polls. Panchayat minister Om Prakash Dhankar says this will change Haryana's rural politics. Yukti is not alone on the top. Richa, sarpanch of Sugh village in Yamunanagar, is an MBA. Another MBA, Nitasha Bansal, has been elected to Ellenabad block samiti in Sirsa district.