Anita Pratap, journalist and writer, who contested the recent general elections as the AAP candidate from Ernakulam constituency, has chosen to make the city her home. Though the results have not been favourable Anita is not deterred. She says,
“I can’t neglect the hopes and expectations of the people who voted for me. I am going to be here to fight for them. If I go back, it will be a betrayal.”
Anita got a warm response from the people of the city whom she met during her campaign. She believes that a huge chunk of the voters who voted for her were “the young and the women folk.”
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Anita began work almost immediately after filing her nomination. She submitted a memorandum to the city mayor to clean up the Perandoor canal and to rehabilitate the slum dwellers staying on its banks. “It is a matter of shame that such slums still exist in the heart of the city,” says Anita in an accent clearly tinged with Kottayam slang of a convent educated Malayali girl.
Born in Kottayam, Anita did her initial schooling at St. Teresa’s Convent Girls School in the city. Her father headed the first TISCO (Tata Iron and Steel Company) office in Kerala. Later she studied in different schools across the country, always shining in academics. Then followed a period of active journalism. The highpoint in her career was an interview with the LTTE supremo, Velupillai Prabhakaran. It shot her to fame. Anita worked at TIME as their South Asian correspondent and then moved into broadcast media working for CNN .
She also did a few documentary films on social issues, before entering politics. Anita’s husband Arne Roy Walther is a Norwegian diplomat and her only son a lawyer in Melbourne, Australia.
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“I decided to contest this election for three reasons,” she says. “Firstly, how long can we be silent witnesses while everything around us is going from bad to worse, day by day?
Secondly, politics is the best instrument to bring change in our society. Fortunately the youth of this country realise that. Since I subscribe to their views, I joined the party and decided to contest.
“Thirdly, our women should play a major role in the country’s decision making process. In Kerala, the number of women MLAs are less than five per cent. Women are hesitant to enter politics for obvious reasons. I wanted to become a role model for them. There should be more women participation, whatever political ideology they subscribe to. Let there be more diverse opinions, so that there will be stable and sustainable decisions.”