Vineetha elected as first female president to head Kerala journalist union

Thiruvananthapuram: With a margin of 78 votes, the 36-year-old Vineetha MV has been elected to head the sixty-year-old the Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ) as the first female president.

In the fierce fight, she secured 1,515 votes against Suryadas MP's 1,437 votes. Vineetha is working as the senior reporter at the Thrissur unit of the Veekshanam daily, while Suryadas is working with the Kozhikode unit of the Mathrubhumi daily.

The elections to the state committee and the 13 district committees of the KUWJ were held on May 21, Saturday, however, as it is being practice, the results of the state committee were announced a week after on Saturday, May 28.

R Kiran Babu of News 18 Malayalam channel has been elected as general secretary by a margin of 361 votes.

Vineetha had been the vice president of the Thrissur district committee of the KUWJ for the period between 2015 and 2017 and secretary of the Thrissur district committee for the 2017-19 period, and elected unanimously as secretary in 2019.

Apart from Vineetha, there are other two women who have been elected as district office-bearers of the union. Being elected as the elected as the secretary of the Thiruvananthapuram district committee, Anupama G Nair has become the first woman to hold the post.

Radhika O, a senior sub-editor with the Mathrubhumi daily, has been elected as president. This is the first time in the history of the union that a woman became president of a KUWJ district committee.