Anjana Krishna, IPS officer who stood firm against Ajit Pawar, is no stranger to overcoming setbacks

From Vilavoorkal village panchayat in Thiruvananthapuram, Anjana Krishna is the first IPS officer from the area, her family says. Her father is a small-time contractor in the construction sector and also runs a hollow bricks manufacturing unit. Her mother, Seena, is an Upper Division Clerk at the district court in Thiruvananthapuram. Her younger brother, Arjun Krishna, is a medical student.

“Anjana is the first successful civil service aspirant from this region, and the first from among the children of the district court employees. We lead an ordinary life. She is very bold, straightforward and believes in leading an honest life. At the same time, she does not have the habit of troubling or hurting anyone,” says Viju.

‘Cool and happy’

The father says that even after the incident with Ajit Pawar, Anjana Krishna has been “very cool and happy”. “She never speaks about official matters with us. We are lucky that nobody speaks ill of our daughter with regard to the incident. After the news hit the headlines, I was flooded with calls from friends and family. Everyone speaks proudly about my daughter,” he says.

In the video that went viral on Thursday, Pawar calls on a local NCP worker’s phone to talk to Anjana Krishna, the Karnala Sub-Divisional Police Officer, while she is in Solapur’s Kurdu village to investigate a complaint of illegal excavation of ‘murrum’ soil that is used in road construction. He tells her: “Suno, mai Deputy Chief Minister bol raha hoon aur aapko aadesh deta hoon ki voh rukwao (Listen, I am the Deputy CM and I am ordering you to stop it).”

Anjana Krishna, posted recently to Maharashtra, doesn’t recognise his voice and asks him to call on her mobile phone instead. “What is the proof that it is the Deputy CM talking?” she says.

She turns 28 this December and has dreamt of becoming an IPS officer since her teenage years. “My initial plan was to see her become a doctor, but when she disclosed her career plan during her college days, we stood with her,” says Viju.

Right after obtaining a degree in Mathematics from NSS College, Neeramankara in Thiruvananthapuram, Anjana Krishna started preparing to achieve her police dream. She did not go for a postgraduate programme, and instead, joined a UPSC exam coaching centre in Kerala’s capital city.

Fourth time’s the charm

It was not an easy journey, though, and in her first three attempts, Anjana did not clear the prelims. However, in the fourth attempt, she cracked the exam in 2022 and secured rank 355.

“Normally, anyone would get disappointed after failing to crack an examination three times on the trot… But she was always confident about succeeding and landing her dream job,” her father says. Viju also says that the family never raised concerns about the money that was spent on her coaching during this period. “But after she failed to clear the UPSC exam in her third attempt, I asked her to appear for other examinations also. Then she wrote the Railway Recruitment Board exam for Clerk and got selected,” he says.

However, during the interview for the RRB job, she sought six months’ time to join as she was awaiting the result of her fourth try in the UPSC exam. Days later, she found that she had finally cracked UPSC — and IPS was her first choice.

After becoming an IPS officer, Anjana joined a postgraduate programme in criminology run by Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). While taking UPSC exam coaching in Kerala, she also worked as an intern with a Malayalam daily for six months.