Chennai: Twenty-nine-year-old R Priya of the DMK will be the first Dalit woman to hold the post of Mayor of Chennai. She is the granddaughter of former Perambur MLA, Chengai Sivam.
In January this year, the state government had passed an order reserving the post for a Scheduled Caste woman. Priya will be Chennai’s third woman mayor after Tara Cherian and Kamakshi Jayaraman. She is also one of the several young candidates to win a councillor post in the Chennai Corporation, the youngest being Priyadarshini (21) of CPI(M), an ally of the DMK. Priyadarshini won from ward 98, Teynampet.
Priya, councillor of ward 74, Mangalapuram, is also the first mayor from North Chennai—an area often neglected and often wrongly depicted in a majority of Tamil cinema as a place where goonda raj and violence abounds. In reality, the many neighbourhoods that come within North Chennai are still in need of basic infrastructure.
As a councillor, this is Priya’s first official post, though she has been a party cadre since the age of 18. She lives in Krishnadoss Street on the second floor of a building. She is the mother of a four-year-old child.
Photos of Dravidian leaders, including Annadurai, Karunanidhi and Chief Minister Stalin, are mounted on the walls and shelves alongside wreaths in the party colours of red and black.
Priya says that her interest in politics and passion to help her neighbourhood was fuelled by the DMK coming back to power in the state in last year’s Assembly elections.
Her father, R Rajan, is the area co-secretary for the DMK. Asked if her family background had inspired her to be a part of student politics during her college days in Sri Kanyaka Parameswari Arts & College for Women in George Town where she did her M Com.