Savithiri Shanmugam (1913 - ?) was an

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...

politician from

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a States and union territories of India, state in southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of India ...

. She represented Coimbatore I in the

Madras Legislative Assembly The Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly is the unicameral legislature of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It has a strength of 234 members of whom are democratically elected using the First-past-the-post system. The presiding officer of the Assembl ...

(1957–62).

Early life

Savithiri Shanmugam was born on 18 November 1913 and attended the St. Francis Convent, Coimbatore.

Career

Shanmugam was a well known public figure and served in various capacities in different organisations. She was the Vice-chairperson of the Coimbatore Municipality and an honorary secretary of the Indian

Red Cross The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million Volunteering, volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure re ...

society. She was also Vice-President of Guild of Service and Seva Nilayam beside being a member of the

Annamalai University , logo = CampusmapofAU.jpg , image = Annamalai University logo.png , image_size = 225px , motto = "With Courage and Faith" , established = , type ...

's senate. The

party made her its official candidate during the

1957 Madras Legislative Assembly election The second legislative assembly election to the Madras state (presently Tamil Nadu) was held on 31 March 1957. This was the first election held after the linguistic reorganization of Madras state in 1954. Indian National Congress and its leader ...

. She contested from Coimbatore I and polled 20,511 votes. She defeated her nearest rival, a candidate of the

Communist Party of India Communist Party of India (CPI) is the oldest Marxist–Leninist communist party in India and one of the nine national parties in the country. The CPI was founded in modern-day Kanpur (formerly known as Cawnpore) on 26 December 1925. H ...

by a margin of 10,573 votes. While in the assembly, Shanmugam raised issues regarding women's education and farmers. She is credited for the increase in Madras government's fund to the Coimbatore Municipality. She called for making

Tamil language Tamil (; ' , ) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. Tamil is an official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the sovereign nations of Sri Lanka and Singapore, and the Indian territory of Pudu ...

the medium of instruction in all colleges. Not much is known about her later life.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shanmugan, Savithiri 1913 births Indian National Congress politicians from Tamil Nadu Year of death missing