Padmini D. Nettoor, a daily wage traffic warden, who is contesting as an independent from the Tripunithura Assembly constituency, has requested ‘balance’ as her symbol.
It was not a random selection. After all, she perceives her fight to be against the gross imbalance in the dispensation of justice. The 44-year-old realises that in a battle of political heavyweights involving K. Babu of the Congress and M. Swaraj of the CPI(M), she does not even stand any chance. “But then, this is not a fight to win but to register protest of the voiceless and the deprived,” she said.
Padmini was in the news a couple of years back when she was allegedly assaulted by a motorist while on duty. Things only went downhill since then. She was removed from the list of traffic wardens hired by the police for duty along the Kochi metro route.
Refusing to cow down, she staged a three-day protest in front of the Edappally traffic police station and was reinstated. But soon she found herself on the receiving end of another alleged assault by a supervisor of the security agency for which she worked.
Padmini says that the ordeal she went through and many similar victims she met in her pursuit of justice prompted her to launch an organisation called Janakeeya Neethi Vedhi in January and now to contest the election.
Unlike the heavily funded party candidates, her campaign expenditure is being raised through her meagre daily wages of Rs.300 and pledging whatever little gold she had. “Over the years, the election has become the domain of the mighty and the rich alone. What people like me can do is to reach out to the people through door-to-door visits and share our grief,” Padmini said.
Though a resident of Nettoor in Tripunithura constituency for over a decade, she had her vote in her native Aryankavu village in Punalur till last election. This is Padmini’s first vote in the Tripunithura constituency and she will happily cast that for herself.
