Jaipur, January 18: A 97 year-old woman was elected as sarpanch in the panchayat election in Rajasthan on Friday. According to a tweet by ANI, the woman named Vidya Devi won the gram panchayat election and became the oldest Sarpanch of Puranabas village. The village lies in the Neem Ka Thana sub division of Sikar district. The result for the panchayat polls were declared on Friday after a day-long polling. Out of the total 4,200 votes, 2,856 voters in the panchayat exercised their franchise.

Reports inform that Vidhya Devi bagged the Puranawas gram panchayat seat by defeating her nearest rival Aarti Meena.  Sadhuram Jat, sub-divisional officer of Neem Ka Thana was quoted by PTI saying that the 97-year-old defeated her rival by 207 votes in the first phase of polling for the panchayat election in the state. He added saying that Devi secured 843 votes, whereas Meena could fetch only 636 votes.

Here's the tweet:

A total of 11 candidates were in the fray from the gram panchayat. Reports inform that Devi's husband was a sarpanch from the panchayat for 25 years before 1990. Elections for 26,800 wards of 2,726 gram panchayats of 87 panchayat samitis in Rajasthan was held in the first phase of the panchayat election. There were a total of 93,20,684 voters, including 48,49,232 men and 44,71,405 women voters.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 18, 2020 12:37 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).