KOZHIKODE: IUML assistant secretary Jayanthi Rajan speaks about her transition from an organisational leader to a high-stakes candidate in Koothuparamba. Excerpts.
What’s your strategy to dismantle LDF’s grip on Koothuparamba?
My experience working in the election campaigns of Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi in Wayanad has given me the “war-room experience” needed.
You are from Wayanad and contesting an assembly election for the first time in Kannur. How do you plan to overcome the “outsider” tag?
When I move between these two places, I see familiar faces; it feels like one big family.
Critics say you have been fielded in an LDF stronghold to avoid accusations of gender bias. How do you respond?
There’s no such thing as an unwinnable seat when you are fighting with conviction.
Do you believe your candidacy marks a genuine structural shift in IUML’s ideology?
As a national leader, I don’t see this as a ‘test’... I see it as a mission I was entrusted with. Critics can call it an ‘experiment’, but the Muslim League doesn’t play games with candidacies.
Vanitha League leader Noorbina Rashid questioned the criteria for your selection...
These internal matters are for the party president to handle. My job is to focus on the work the party has assigned me in Koothuparamba.