Yalamanchili Satyanarayana Chowdary (born 2 June 1961), popularly known as Sujana Chowdary, is an Indian politician from Andhra Pradesh. He is a former Member of Parliament,

Rajya Sabha Rajya Sabha (Council of States) is the upper house of the Parliament of India and functions as the institutional representation of India’s federal units — the states and union territories.https://rajyasabha.nic.in/ It is a key component o ...

, elected from the

Telugu Desam Party The Telugu Desam Party (TDP; ) is an Indian regional political party primarily active in the Federated state, states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. It was founded by Telugu cinema, Telugu matinée idol N. T. Rama Rao (NTR) on 29 March 1982 a ...

and later moved to

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; , ) is a political party in India and one of the two major List of political parties in India, Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. BJP emerged out from Syama Prasad Mukherjee's ...

. He was the Indian union Minister of State for Science, Technology from 9 November 2014 to 8 March 2018. Sujana Chowdary contested and won the

2024 Elections This is a list of elections that were held in 2024. The National Democratic Institute also maintains a calendar of elections around the world. *2024 United Nations Security Council election *2024 national electoral calendar *2024 local electoral ...

from Vijayawada West Assembly Constituency and won with a margin of 47,032 votes.

Early life and career

Sujana Chowdary was born in

Kanchikacherla Kanchikacherla is a suburb of Vijayawada in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is located in Kanchikacherla mandal of Nandigama revenue division. Government and politics Kanchikacherla, under Kanchikacherla mandal is represented by Nand ...

village in the

Krishna district Krishna district is a district in the Coastal Andhra region in Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, with Machilipatnam as its administrative headquarters. It is surrounded on the East by Bay of Bengal, West by Guntur district, Guntur, Bapatla distric ...

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (ISO 15919, ISO: , , AP) is a States and union territories of India, state on the East Coast of India, east coast of southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, seventh-largest state and th ...

. He married Padmaja on 6 August 1989. The couple have two children, Y. S. Karthik and Y. Naga Chandini. He graduated in 1984 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the

Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Technology Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Technology (CBIT) is a private engineering college located in Gandipet, near Financial District, Hyderabad, Telangana, India. The college is affiliated to Osmania University and is accredited by the National ...

Hyderabad Hyderabad is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India. With an average altitude of , much ...

. He completed his master's degree in Machine Tool Engineering from the

PSG College of Technology PSG College of Technology (often abbreviated as PSG Tech) is an autonomous, Government Aided, government aided, private engineering college in Coimbatore, India. It is affiliated with Anna University. It is an initiative of the PSG and Sons C ...

Coimbatore Coimbatore (Tamil: kōyamputtūr, ), also known as Kovai (), is one of the major Metropolitan cities of India, metropolitan cities in the States and union territories of India, Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located on the banks of the Noyy ...

, Tamil Nadu. In 1986, he founded the Sujana Group of Companies and headed the Hyderabad-based group of Industries before retiring from business to join politics.

Political career

Chowdary entered politics in 2010 when he was elected to the

, India's upper house of Parliament, representing the

(TDP) from

on 22 June 2010. On 9 November 2014, during the first expansion of the Council of Ministers of Prime Minister

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician who has served as the Prime Minister of India, prime minister of India since 2014. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Par ...

's NDA Government (

National Democratic Alliance (India) The National Democratic Alliance (NDA; ISO 15919, ISO: ''Rāṣṭrīya Lokatāntrik Gaṭhabandhan'') is an Indian big tent Political group, multi-party political alliance, led by the country's biggest political party, the Bharatiya Janata Pa ...

), Chowdary was appointed the Minister of State for Science & Technology, & Earth Sciences. He was elected as the TDP's Parliamentary Leader on 4 June 2014. Chowdary served as member of the Indo-Singapore Parliamentary Friendship Group, jointly set up as a step towards strengthening bilateral ties between the two countries’ Parliaments. He was a member of the

Government of India The Government of India (ISO 15919, ISO: Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union Government or Union of India or the Central Government) is the national authority of the Republic of India, located in South Asia, consisting of States and union t ...

's Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce, the Parliamentary Forum on Youth, the Consultative Committee for the

Ministry of Food Processing Industries The Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MOFPI) is a federal ministry of the Government of India responsible for the formulation and administration of the rules, regulations, and laws related to food processing in India. The ministry was est ...

Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana

Under the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY) programme, Sujana Chowdary adopted Ponnavaram village, which is located about 60 km from

Vijayawada Vijayawada ( ), formerly known by its colonial name Bezawada, is the second largest city and a major commercial hub in the Andhra Pradesh state of India. The city forms an integral part of the Andhra Pradesh Capital Region and is situated on th ...

in Krishna District of

. Under the programme, he has initiated the transformation of the place into a model village by implementing various development programs such as digital class rooms in the local government school, conducting medical camps, laying cement roads, building toilets for the households.

Sujana Charitable Trust

The Sujana Charitable Trust and the Sujana Foundation, manifest the Sujana Group's Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives. The Foundation supports two schools for challenged children in

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

, an Old Age Home in

, and grants scholarships and merit awards for excellence to students in the areas of

academics Academic means of or related to an academy, an institution learning. Academic or academics may also refer to: * Academic staff, or faculty, teachers or research staff * school of philosophers associated with the Platonic Academy in ancient Greece ...

sports Sport is a physical activity or game, often competitive and organized, that maintains or improves physical ability and skills. Sport may provide enjoyment to participants and entertainment to spectators. The number of participants in ...

social entrepreneurship Social entrepreneurship is an approach by individuals, groups, Startup company, start-up companies or entrepreneurs, in which they develop, fund and implement solutions to social, cultural, or environmental issues. This concept may be applied to ...

, innovation in engineering, agriculture,

poverty alleviation Poverty reduction, poverty relief, or poverty alleviation is a set of measures, both economic and humanitarian, that are intended to permanently lift people out of poverty. Measures, like those promoted by Henry George in his economics classi ...

and

rural development Rural development is the process of improving the quality of life, quality of life and economic well-being of people living in rural areas, often relatively isolated and sparsely populated areas. Often, rural regions have experienced rural povert ...

Controversy

Chowdary was under media scanner for an allegation by the

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Ltd of

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on the grounds that the company defaulted on the Rs 1.92 billion loan it availed through its subsidiary. This allegation popped up a day after the Rajya Sabha MP-cum-industrialist was sworn in as a

Union minister The Union Council of Ministers is the Cabinet (government), principal executive organ of the Government of India, which serves to aid and advise the President of India in execution of their functions.Article 74 of the ''Constitution of India' ...

. A clarification from the MPs office later said that he had not secured loan from the

. It was his group firm – Sujana Universal Industries —that borrowed the funds and he only stood as a guarantor to the loan obtained by that step-down subsidiary. On 23 and 24 November 2018, searches were conducted by

Enforcement Directorate The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is a law enforcement and economic intelligence agency of the Government of India. Established on 1 May 1956, it is responsible for enforcing economic laws and combating financial crimes. The ED operates under th ...

, at the residence and office of Sujana Chowdary in Hyderabad and Delhi. The agency claimed, the group of companies belonging to him defrauded banks to the tune of Rs 57 billion. The documents seized by the agency indicated that the group was controlling over 120 companies that were only on paper without any genuine business activities. Chowdary alleged that he was being targeted for political reasons and said he would take legal recourse against the ED. He claimed his companies were maintaining all records and the allegations made by the ED were baseless.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chowdary, Y. S. Businesspeople from Andhra Pradesh Telugu Desam Party politicians Living people 1961 births Narendra Modi ministry Telugu politicians Rajya Sabha members from Andhra Pradesh Union ministers from Andhra Pradesh Politicians from Krishna district Bharatiya Janata Party politicians from Andhra Pradesh Rajya Sabha members from the Bharatiya Janata Party Andhra Pradesh MLAs 2024–2029