Contents:
- The mayor
- Biography of the mayor
- The mayor and civic engagements
- Invite the mayor to your event
- Mayoral charities
- Mayoral history
- Ceremonial maces, 1207 charter and the city's coat of arms
The mayor of Cambridge is Cllr Baiju Thittala.
Baiju was born in Kerala, India, where he would often work alongside his father in the paddy fields throughout his childhood.
Baiju moved to England in 2004 with his wife Ancy who is a nurse. He studied politics, sociology and history at Cambridge Regional College whilst working as a care assistant, with a dream of being a lawyer and politician.
He then went on to study Law and graduated from Anglia Ruskin University in 2013 with a 2.1 in LLB (Hons).
Following that, Baiju took a course in Employment Law at the University of East Anglia and a Legal Practice Course at Anglia Ruskin. He qualified as a solicitor in 2019 and now practices as a criminal defence solicitor in a local firm.
In 2009, Baiju became involved in community activism as an active member of the Indian Workers’ Association. He ran employment awareness sessions for South Indian communities across the UK.
He has also lobbied Parliament, with the support of our local MP, against the unreasonable, disproportionate and discriminatory English language standard requirements for non-EU nurses, a rule which has now changed. Baiju feels politics is all about advocating for the rights of the working people.
In 2018, Baiju was elected to represent East Chesterton in the by-election, becoming one of only a handful of first-generation councillors from a minority ethnic background in the history of Cambridge City Council. Since then he has continued to fight a range of issues to create a fairer society for everyone, particularly the underprivileged.
Baiju was previously the lead councillor for Equalities at Cambridge City Council, sitting on the Equalities Panel, and was also the Vice Chair of the Licensing Committee and the chair for the Housing Scrutiny Committee. In 2019, he was shortlisted in three constituencies as a potential Parliamentary candidate and came second in the West Suffolk Parliamentary constituency.
As a councillor, Baiju moved a motion at full council, calling on members to show their support for the Black Lives Matter movement, a motion that was passed unanimously. He has also called on the council to lobby the Nursing and Midwifery Council for an end to disproportionate and unfair treatment of non-EU nurses. That fight continued until the rule was changed.
Baiju is totally committed to supporting his community as a way of repaying the support he received when he first arrived in the UK.
In May 2023, Baiju was elected as the first Asian Deputy Mayor of Cambridge.
Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, Martin Luther King, Bhagat Singh, Lal, Bal, Pal and Subash Chandrabose all inspired him and motivated his journey into politics.
