KOTTAYAM: In what can be termed as a fierce competition, Sacred Heart College (SHC), Thevara, trounced their rivals by a good margin to defend crown at the Mahatma Gandhi University Arts Festival, which concluded here on Monday. The champions scored 107 points to win the title. St Teresa’s College finished runner up with 91 points while RLV College of Music and Fine Arts came third with 63 points and Maharaja’s College, Ernakulam, was placed at the fourth spot with 63 points.
Sacred Heart College bettered its last year’s tally of 102 points to assert its supremacy in the event for the second consecutive year. Last year, the festival saw a major upset when SHC wrested the championship from St Teresa’s College, which has been reigning supreme for quite sometime. St Teresa’s could score only 53 points.
Though SHC clinched the title by maintaining clear domination since day one of the event, they were given a tough competition by St Teresa’s which banked on some tenacious performances on the penultimate and the final day to race past other colleges which have placed in the third and fourth position.
As in the previous year, colleges from Ernakulam clinched the first four positions in the championship table while the CMS College, Kottayam, which scored 33 points, was the only college outside the district to find a place among the top five colleges.
Poornasree Haridas of SHC topped the list of individual performers, followed by Kavipriya B of St Thomas College, Pala, with 11 points. Meanwhile, the events staged on the last day of the festival evoked a huge public response. At the main venue where the ‘Oppana’ competition was held, people were seen encouraging the performers with standing ovations.
Actor Rajisha Vijayan inaugurated the valedictory session of the event. MGU union chairman Nikhil S presided over the function while Sabu Thomas, Vice-Chancellor in-charge, MGU, delivered the keynote address. Actor Vijay Babu and Sarjano Khalid were present.