At 24, Shahnaaz Khan became not just the youngest but also the most educated Sarpanch in her region.
24-year-old at the time, Shahnaaz Khan made history back in 2018 when she became the youngest Sarpanch of Haryana-Rajasthan’s Mewat region. She pulled off an unlikely feat of contesting and winning elections while studying MBBS on her way to become a medical doctor.
In fact, on the day of the by-election which she won, Khan was in the midst of appearing for the practical exams of the fourth year of her MBBS course. She was pursuing MBBS from the Teerthanker Mahaveer Medical College and Research Center in Uttar Pradesh’s Moradabad.
Not just the youngest Sarpanch, she also became the most educated one in the area which spans across parts of two north Indian states. She is also the most educated woman ever to emerge from the village Garhazan. Khan did her medical internship at Gurugram’s civil hospital.
Shahnaaz decided to enter politics, carrying forward a family legacy, after her grandfather’s recent election win was declared nill and void by a court ruling. The trigger was a rule change by the Rajasthan government which made Class 10 qualification a prerequisite to contest Sarpanch polls.
Not just her grandfather, Shahnaaz’s parents are also active politicians. Her mother was an MLA while father was a Panchayat block level head. The young woman Sarpanch did her schooling from the Delhi Public School and The Shri Ram School.