BJP candidate Uma Anandhan, who courted controversy for supporting Nathuram Godse who shot Mahatma Gandhi dead, has won from Ward 134 in West Mambalam on Tuesday, defeating the Congress candidate by a margin of 2,036 votes.
In an interview to a Tamil YouTube channel last year, she had said she was proud that Godse was a Hindu and that she had no regrets in supporting (him). In fact, she said that he killed the Mahatma (quite) late. Since morning, the Twitterati was curious about her performance in the polls and when she won, an clip in which she made remarks about Godse went viral.
However, Ms. Anandhan refrained from speaking about her controversial interview after she was elected and was shielded well by her partymen through the day.
She told The Hindu that her priority would be to mitigate the problem of flooding in the area. “During my election campaign and in my manifesto, I have told about the problems the ward is facing, especially during floods. During the rains, water is entering the houses . If you go and see now, you will see 90% of the ground floor flats in certain areas are vacant. People who have lived in older flats have now locked their house and gone somewhere else to live,” she said.
“Many of them are senior citizens. To be displaced at this age is such a psychological trauma for them. It is just not the financials alone. You know it is the psychological, the mental trauma and the financial trauma. So my first thing would be to solve this problem of flood waters entering the houses and mixing with sewage water, leading to the other health hazards.” Pointing to the Union Government programmes, Ms. Anandhan said: “Prime Minister Modiji’s programmes are there and if we implement them, I think the ward by itself will become a model ward in Chennai.” “The place [ward] is rich culturally. It has its own ambience. Once you live there you won’t like to live somewhere else. The public health centre, which is part and parcel of the daily lives of the people is good. In those days, it was envisaged and started. I would like to interact with the health centre people and see how best we can enhance such service,” she said. “I want the local people to interact with me on the issues they have. It is a transparent process. Supposing they come to me with a developmental problem, the residents can monitor as to what level we are progressing and how best and fast we can finish the welfare schemes.”
