The BJP has nominated councillor Navya Haridas for the high-profile Wayanad Lok Sabha seat in the upcoming bypolls. She will face Congress candidate Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who is making her electoral debut in Wayanad and is set to file her nomination today.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Navya Haridas said that she was surprised by the news of BJP giving her ticket to contest from the seat.
“I got an official confirmation only after my ticket was announced on news channels. I got a hint that my name was included in the list of probable candidates. But did not expect that I would be picked up,’’ the 39-year-old BJP candidate told IE.
Navya currently serves as a councillor in the Kozhikode municipal corporation and is the state general secretary of the BJP’s Mahila Morcha, the women’s wing of the party.
An engineering graduate, Navya’s entry into politics was unplanned. After earning her BTech, she spent two and a half years as a software professional at HSBC Bank. In 2009, she married marine engineer Shobin Shyam and moved to Singapore, where she continued her career in various software companies.
Growing up in a family affiliated with the Sangh Parivar, Navya recalls witnessing RSS meetings at her home in Kozhikode and participating in RSS student activities, although she never envisioned a political career, reports IE.
Her journey took a turn in 2015 when she returned to Kozhikode for a brief vacation and observed the local body elections.
“The BJP approached me with a ticket due to my family background with the Sangh Parivar. I was fielded from the general seat in the corporation, becoming a candidate overnight. My initial plan was to return to Singapore if I lost,” Navya said.
Instead, she won the election and was re-elected in 2020. In the 2021 Assembly elections, Navya took a significant step forward as the BJP candidate for the Kozhikode South seat. Although she lost to Indian National League candidate Ahamed Devarkovil, she successfully increased the BJP’s vote share from 16.56% in 2016 to 20.89% in 2021.
As campaigning for the Wayanad election continues, she stressed that the state is confronting urgent challenges, especially in the areas of health and agriculture.
“The health facilities in Wayanad are severely lacking. We have only a nominal government medical college. The recent landslide highlighted the ecological fragility of the area, and farmers are struggling due to frequent wild animal raids. These are the critical problems we must address,” she said.