From Nagercoil to Raj Bhavan: Journey of a woman crusader

Chennai: At 58 years, she may be fairly young to be Governor. But, she is no novice to administration and is very good in teamwork.

For Dr. Tamilisai Soundararajan, her journey to the Hyderabad Raj Bhavan from Nagercoil, headquarters of Kanyakumari district, the southernmost tip of TN and India, is a tale of sheer hard work and the relentless way she puts up a brave fight against parties and outfits opposed to the BJP in particular and the Hindus in general. When she was serving as the BJP's vice president, she had then told this correspondent, “It is extremely difficult for the BJP to take on the Dravidian parties which are strong financially and numerically.”

But when her party did enter into an electoral pact with the ruling AIADMK for the April Lok Sabha elections, the BJP could not make a dramatic turnaround. Along with her party, she too lost the election, contesting from Thoothukudi Lok Sabha constituency, close to her hometown Nagercoil. That may well be her last electoral battles as there has been a fairytale ending to her travails as party president to help the lotus to bloom in the Dravidian heartland. And the reward is Telangana Raj Bhavan - something that she or many in her party here didn't expect.

Tamilisai was born in Nagercoil on 2 June 1961. She pursued her MBBS at Madras Medical College, and obsterics & Gynaecology at Dr. MGR Medical University, Chennai. She did a special higher training in Sonology and FET therapy in Canada. She hailed from a Congress family - her father Kumari Anandan, is former TNCC chief and his brother H. Vasantha Kumar is Congress MP from Kanyakumari. Since her student days she took an instant liking to the BJP and over the years, she worked in various capacities in the saffron party. Her husband Dr. Soundarajan is a senior consultant Nephrologist at Apollo Hospital, and Governing council member of Indian Council of Medical Research.

 A writer and a popular television debater, she was the first woman to head the BJP in the State. The choice of the BJP leadership indicates the shifting of gears paving way for a new leader, the Telangana Raj Bhavan is considered as an acknowledgement of her services as party president.

Her choice of BJP as against her father's Congress is something that reminds one of Robert Frost's poem - The Road Not Taken - where the poet says: “I took the one less travelled by, And that has made all the difference.” Expressing joy over her appointment as Governor, Tamilisai said, “I chose the BJP, not my father's Congress, and this made the difference.”