Meet 23-yr-old Arya Rajendran, India’s youngest mayor

Arya Rajendran became the youngest mayor in India when she was appointed the mayor of Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala’s capital city, in 2020.

Arya is a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).  She had won from the Mudavanmughal ward of the city corporation, bagging 2,872 votes.

Arya broke the record of Sabitha Beegum who became Kollam Mayor at 23 and Devendra Fadnavis, the opposition leader in Maharashtra Legislative Assembly who became the mayor of Nagpur Municipal Corporation at the age of 27.

She did her schooling at Carmel Girls Higher Secondary School, Trivandrum and completed her B.Sc Mathematics at All Saints College, Thiruvananthapuram.

She is the daughter of CPI(M) activists, Rajendran, an electrician by profession, and Sreelatha, a LIC agent. She became associated with the party when she joined the children’s collective Balasangam in Class 5.

Rajendran is a state committee member of the Students Federation of India (SFI), – the student’s wing of CPI(M) and also the state president of Balasangam, the children’s wing of the Left party.

In March 2022, Arya got engaged to Balussery MLA K. M. Sachin Dev. He is among the youngest members of the Kerala assembly.

They have known each other since their days as activists of the Students Federation of India and Rajendran had campaigned for Dev ahead of the 2021 Kerala assembly elections.

The couple will tie the knot next month.