Renuka Chowdhury (born 13 August 1954) is an Indian politician and a member of the Indian National Congress, she represented the political party in the Rajya Sabha from Andhra Pradesh. She has also served as the Union minister of State (Independent Charge) for Ministry of Women and Child Development and Tourism in the Government of India.

Early life

Born to Air Commodore Suryanarayana Rao and Vasundhara (Born in Madanapalle) on 13 August 1954 in Vishakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh). Renuka is the eldest of three daughters. She studied at the Welham Girls' School,

Dehradun Dehradun () is the capital and the most populous city of the Indian state of Uttarakhand. It is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous district and is governed by the Dehradun Municipal Corporation, with the Uttarakhand Legislative As ...

and received her B.A. in Industrial Psychology from Bangalore University. Renuka was married to Sreedhar Chowdhury in 1973.

Career

Chowdhury entered politics in 1984 as a member of Telugu Desam Party. She was a member of the Rajya Sabha for two consecutive terms and Chief Whip of Telugu Desam Parliamentary party from 1986 to 1998. She was also the Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare from 1997 to 1998 in the cabinet of H. D. Deve Gowda. She left Telugu Desam Party to join

Congress party The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...

in 1998. In 1999 and 2004, she was elected to the

13th In music or music theory, a thirteenth is the note thirteen scale degrees from the root of a chord and also the interval between the root and the thirteenth. The interval can be also described as a compound sixth, spanning an octave pl ...

and

14th 14 (fourteen) is a natural number following 13 (number), 13 and preceding 15 (number), 15. In relation to the word "four" (4), 14 is spelled "fourteen". In mathematics * 14 is a composite number. * 14 is a square pyramidal number. * 14 is a s ...

Lok Sabha respectively representing Khammam. Other positions include memberships on the Committee on Finance (1999–2000) and Committee on the Empowerment of Women (2000–2001). In May 2004 she became the Minister of State for Tourism in the UPA I government. She was the Union minister of State (Independent Charge) for Ministry of Women and Child Development in the UPA I government from January 2006 to May 2009. In the May 2009 Lok Sabha elections, Renuka Chowdary was defeated by Nama Nageswara Rao of TDP from Khammam by 1,24,448 votes. The Mumbai newspaper, ''Mid Day'', reported in 2009 that, in response to "Sri Ram Sena's Valentine's Day threat" Chowdary said that youth should "swarm" pubs and make a point to the "moral police brigade". After the

2009 Mangalore pub attack On 24 January 2009, the Sri Ram Sena attacked a group of young women and men in a pub in Mangalore, India. A group of 40 activists of the Sri Rama Sena barged into the pub "Amnesia – The Lounge" and beat up a group of young women and men ...

by the Sri Ram Sena Chouwdary commented that Mangalore had been "talibanized". This resulted in a case being filed against her by the town's mayor, accusing her of glorifying isolated incidents and making generalized comments about the city. The "Pub Bharo" campaign was actually being headed by her younger daughter Tejaswini. Chowdary became a spokesperson for the Congress and was re-elected to Rajya Sabha in 2012.(25 March 2012
55 elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha
the Hindu, retrieved 30 March 2012

Parliamentary Committees

* Member, Committee on Finance (1999-2000) * Member, Committee on the Empowerment of Women (2000-2001) * Member, Committee on Government Assurances (May 2012 – Sept. 2014) * Member, Committee on Finance (May 2012 – May 2014) * Member, Business Advisory Committee (May 2013 – Sept. 2014) * Member, Committee on Agriculture (Sept. 2014–Present) * Member, House Committee (Sept. 2014–Present) * Member, General Purposes Committee (April 2016 – Present) * Chairperson, Committee on Science and Technology, Environment and Forests (April 2016 – 2018)

References

External links

Renuka Chowdhury profile
at

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Chowdhury, Renuka Indian National Congress politicians from Andhra Pradesh Telugu politicians India MPs 1999–2004 India MPs 2004–2009 Union ministers of state of India with independent charge Telangana politicians Women in Telangana politics 1954 births Living people Politicians from Visakhapatnam Bangalore University alumni Telugu Desam Party politicians Women's ministers Rajya Sabha members from Andhra Pradesh People from Khammam district Lok Sabha members from Andhra Pradesh Women in Andhra Pradesh politics 20th-century Indian women politicians 20th-century Indian politicians 21st-century Indian women politicians 21st-century Indian politicians Women union ministers of state of India Women members of the Lok Sabha Women members of the Rajya Sabha Welham Girls' School alumni