Rajeshwari Suve M from Madurai has secured All India Rank (AIR) 2 in the UPSC Civil Services Examination 2025, emerging as the only woman among the top five rank holders this year. Her success marks another milestone in a career already rooted in public service, she had earlier cleared the TNPSC Group I examination and was serving as a Deputy Collector before cracking the UPSC exam.
An Electrical Engineering graduate from Anna University, Chennai, coming from a family of businessman father + Asst Prof mother, Rajeshwari completed her degree in 2018. For the UPSC Civil Services Examination 2025, she chose Sociology as her optional subject and has opted for Tamil Nadu as her home cadre.
According to the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), a total of 958 candidates have been recommended for appointment to various central civil services after the completion of the examination process, which includes the preliminary examination, the main examination, and the personality test (interview).
Credits ‘Naan Mudhalvan’ Scheme
Following the announcement of the results, Rajeshwari credited the Tamil Nadu government’s “Naan Mudhalvan” scheme for playing a key role in her UPSC success.
Speaking to ANI, she said, “I secured All India Rank 2 in the 2025 Civil Services examination. I was a bit surprised, of course. It was a long journey for me – from 2018. I passed out in 2018; I am a BE graduate. So it is a journey of seven years. With the guidance of the Tamil Nadu government’s Nal Mudhalvan scheme, it has become possible now.”
Explaining the role of the scheme in her preparation, she stated, “I was one of the beneficiaries in the first batch itself. In 2024, I got selected among the thousand people who were given financial assistance for the Prelims examination – that is ₹7,500 per month for 10 months.”
She further said that the programme supported her through subsequent stages of the exam as well.
“When I cleared my Prelims, I was getting coaching for Mains here. They gave financial assistance of about ₹25,000 for Mains and ₹50,000 for the interview. Other than financial assistance, the Nal Mudhalvan team has great faculty support for students.”
According to Rajeshwari, the scheme’s guidance helped candidates focus on what is relevant for the civil services examination. “What I feel is they direct us in the correct direction – only what is relevant to UPSC. So the UPSC relevance is very high in the Nal Mudhalvan scheme.”
Explaining her family background, she said, “I am from Madurai district. My father is Mr. Murugadas and he is a businessman. My mother is Mrs. Nagarani and she is an Associate Professor of Mathematics. I have a younger sibling, Kumar Selvan, who is doing MBBS now. I did my graduation in BE.”
Earlier Interview Credits Appolo Coaching
However, an earlier interview given by Rajeshwari in 2024 to Appolo Study Centre, a private coaching institute, presents a different account of her preparation journey particularly regarding her TNPSC success.
Introducing herself in that interview, she said: “Vanakkam. My name is M. Rajeshwari Suvi. I am from Madurai district. In the recently concluded Group 1 examination, I have secured State Level Rank 11.”
She explained that after graduating in 2018, she initially began preparing for UPSC.
“When I first passed out in 2018, I was initially preparing for UPSC. That one year was like a UPSC foundation course, which helped me gather general knowledge.”
She said she appeared for the TNPSC Group I preliminary examination in 2019, clearing it despite not having taken formal coaching.
“In that same year, 2019, I appeared for the Group 1 Prelims for the first time. But I had not done any proper coaching or preparation specifically for TNPSC. Even so, I cleared the Prelims.”
However, she added that she was unable to clear the mains stage that year due to lack of guidance.
“Without proper guidance, I didn’t focus well on Mains. I self-prepared and appeared, but I couldn’t clear the Mains.”
According to her earlier account, she decided to prepare more systematically when the next TNPSC notification was issued in 2020.
“I told myself – this time I need to do it properly and effectively. So in 2020, I properly started preparing specifically for TNPSC. That is when I joined Appolo.”
She further stated: “My entire TNPSC journey from 2020 until now has been oriented around Appolo.”
Rajeshwari credited the institute’s guidance and test series for helping her succeed in the exam.
“From that point onwards, it has been entirely under the guidance of Appolo Director Mr. Sam Rajeswaran sir that I have completed my entire TNPSC journey.”
She eventually secured State Rank 11 in the TNPSC Group I examination, leading to her appointment as Deputy Collector in 2024.
The Timeline Does Not Add Up
The Naan Mudhalvan scheme was launched in 2022, and its UPSC scholarship component has been operational since 2023 meaning the 2024 cycle was the scheme’s second annual cohort of 1,000 beneficiaries, not the first. Yet Rajeshwari claims she was part of ‘the first batch itself’, a claim that does not hold up against the scheme’s own documented timeline. What she received in 2024 was financial assistance at the final leg of a seven-year journey built almost entirely on private coaching.
By the time Rajeshwari became a Naan Mudhalvan beneficiary, she had already cleared TNPSC Group 1, was already an appointed Deputy Collector, and had already spent six years preparing for competitive examinations – the bulk of it under private coaching at Appolo Study Centre. The scheme’s financial support came at the very tail end of a long journey that had been built entirely on private coaching, personal perseverance, and family support. To now project Naan Mudhalvan as the foundational enabler of her success is, at best, a selective retelling. At worst, it is a political script handed to a topper and faithfully delivered.
This is not a unique occurrence. The DMK government has a well-documented pattern of retrofitting its schemes onto achievements that predate or only marginally involved them, then amplifying those narratives through state media and sympathetic press.
Is Naan Mudhalvan Scheme Being Misused?
Crucially, the Naan Mudhalvan UPSC Scholarship is not a general merit scheme – it is explicitly designed for ‘economically disadvantaged UPSC aspirants’ who lack the financial means to pursue coaching on their own. By 2024, Rajeshwari was a serving Deputy Collector drawing a government salary, from a family that includes an Associate Professor mother and a businessman father – by her own admission to ANI. That a well-placed government officer occupied one of 1,000 slots meant for economically backward candidates and then publicly credited that scheme as the hero of her success raises questions that go beyond narrative management.
What This Means
None of this diminishes Rajeshwari Suve’s extraordinary achievement. A seven-year journey, five UPSC attempts, cracking both TNPSC Group 1 and UPSC CSE in the top ranks – that is a story of exceptional grit that needs no political embellishment. Her success belongs to her, her family, and the coaches who guided her for years.
What it does raise is a pointed question about the weaponisation of individual achievement for scheme propaganda and the role of a compliant media ecosystem in amplifying that propaganda without verification. Every major news channel ran the Naan Mudhalvan credit line. Not one, until now, thought to check what Rajeshwari herself had said on camera just twelve months earlier.
The 2024 Appolo interview exists. It is timestamped. It is on YouTube. The contrast with the 2026 post-result interviews is stark. And it raises a question that Rajeshwari, and the Tamil Nadu government, owe the public an honest answer to: at what point did Naan Mudhalvan become the hero of a story that Appolo Study Centre and six years of private preparation had actually written?
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