Karnataka girl first Indian woman to become president of Oxford Student Union

The election saw 4,881 students cast 36,405 votes, an SU record

Rashmi Samant, an alumnus of Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT), created a history of sorts by winning the prestigious position of Oxford Student Union Presidency on Thursday.

Rashmi is the first Indian woman to occupy the position of president of the Oxford Student Union. Incidentally, in the historic win, she bagged more than the combined votes of three other candidates for the post.

Rashmi hails from Manipal and is a student of M.Sc. in Energy Systems at Linacre College, Oxford University. She intends to push for residency requirements to be waived until the World Health Organization declares an end to the pandemic. Rashmi plans to lobby to increase funding for mental health strategy and work to convince the Conference of Colleges to divest from fossil fuels as soon as possible.

Rashmi received 1,966 of the 3,708 votes cast for the post of President, more than all the other candidates combined, in a landslide victory. The election saw the highest ever voter turnout with 4,881 students who cast 36,405 votes for all the posts combined.

Rashmi, daughter of Vathsala Samant and Dinesh Samant, completed her graduation in Mechanical Engineering at MIT (2016-2020 batch) in Manipal.

She was Technical Secretary of the Student Council at MIT, Manipal. Her efforts helped the conception and introduction of the MIT Manipal Hackathon, an event to incubate modern digital solutions to societal challenges.

Officials of MAHE, MIT Director and staff of the institute praised Rashmi’s achievement and wished her success in her role as the president of Oxford SU.