Kannur: Dr Priya Varghese, whose appointment to the Associate Professor post at Kannur University was withheld by the High Court, has slammed the media for including the name of her husband K K Ragesh, the Chief Minister’s private secretary, in the controversy.

“My relationship with K K Ragesh is not that of a father-daughter one. The only agreement between us is to live together. If any one of us ends the deal, then the scope to give stories mentioning me as the wife of a top official at the Chief Minister’s office will end there,” she took to Facebook to express her displeasure.

“Priya Varghese, as an individual, has nothing to be sad about. Not the emperor’s coins, but I’m the one who is earning the salary of the Kerala government every month. For a person who entered the service as an Assistant Professor in 2012, there is no need to go in search of any new appointment to ascend to the post of Associate Professor. I will make it to the post if I’m alive. What thrills me in this game was that I like it very much to scratch those boisterous people from the good olden days itself,” she wrote.

“I got amused when certain individuals boasted that there won’t be a single historian in this world who hadn’t read their thesis on history. I just had the thought, ‘oh! Good, this is interesting’. As an individual who has taken a firm decision not to participate in any competition being attended by students, whom I have taught or those of their ages, no such issues of equitableness came in the way of this fight.

“Not only that, I was the only woman candidate on the rank list. There are many women professors in Kannur itself whom I respect a lot, like Dr R Rajashree or Dr Jisa Joseph. I think I was shortlisted, maybe, because they didn’t apply for the post. This is all Priya Varghese as an individual has to say in the matter,” her FB post read.