Winning all but one seat, the SFI's panel had swept the College of Engineering Trivandrum's Students' Union polls, on September 4. This win is considered as path-breaking by the student political organisation. The reason? It was led by a woman, for the first time in the history of any professional institution in Kerala.
However, the college's newly elected chairperson Anjuradh TR doesn't seem to be quite kicked by creating history. "I don't think that I have to be viewed as a woman first and then as a chairperson. I'm just like anyone else. I only consider myself an eligible candidate to hold that position," she says.
A fourth year Civil Engineering student, she was instrumental in leading the Azadi movement in the college last year, to extend the hostel's curfew timing. But she says that this had nothing to do with the elections. "I never even thought that I'll be offered candidature. Last year, I was the Lady Representative, so I got involved in Azadi. I just made sure that I was just to the students who voted," she says. The Azadi movement in the college was established to look into gender discrimination and related issues.
At the same time, she says that the same cause that she stood for was used as a weapon against her by the opposition. "I was called a self-proclaimed protest leader. This is something that hurt me a lot. I'm still not over it," she says. "Along with that, they had accused an SFI candidate of sexually harassing a KSU candidate. But when questions were raised about it by the students, they were mum," she adds.
She also says that the opposition's panel had seven women, against four women in the SFI panel. "They'd often ask if four is greater than seven. They think woman empowerment come by hiking numbers. But we only looked at the aptness of the candidate. We do not want the votes to go in vain," she says.
