Top 10 Women Politicians In India

Through the Panchayat Raj Instituition over million of women have actively entered the politics.Some of the notable women leaders in india include Sushma Swaraj,Vasundhara Raje Scindhia,Sheila Dixit,Mayawati, Uma Bharti and Soniya Gandhi.

Vasundhara Raje Scindia.

Vasundhara Raje was born on March 8, 1953 in Mumbai. She is daughter of Rajmata Vijayraje Scindia and Jivaji Rao Scindia of Gwalior.She married former Maharajah of Dholpur, Hemant Singh, on 17 November 1972.She entered the politcs in 1984. She held a variety of posts in the BJP and was elected to the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly in 1985.She is the BJP’s face in Rajasthan, though she comes from Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh. She is the first women Chief Minister of Rajasthan.
From 1989 onwards she won four consecutive elections to the Lok Sabha from Jhalawar, Rajasthan. She held a variety of posts in the Vajpayee cabinets, the most prominent being the Minister of State for External Affairs.

In 2003, she shot to prominence by leading the BJP to its biggest victory in the state elections in Rajasthan, where she represents the Jhalrapatan seat. Her son Dushyant Singh was elected to the Lok Sabha from her former constituency.

In 2007, she was awarded “Women Together Award”, by the UNO, for efforts to assist women in self-empowerment.

In 2008, her government is facing a tough challenge in handling the 2008 caste violence in Rajasthan.

Uma Bharti

she was born on May 3,1959 in Tikamgarh district in Madhya Pradesh in India. At a very young age she became involved with Bhartiya Janata Party.She contested her first parliamentary elections in 1984 and was defeated.She successfully contested the Khajuraho seat and retained it in elections conducted in 1991,1996,1998 and 1999.In the Vajpayee’s Administration, she held various state-level portfolios of Human Resource Development, Tourism, Youth Affairs & Sports, and finally Coal & Mines.

In the year 2003 Assembly polls, she led  BJP to a three fourths majority in Madhya Pradesh. She defeated her Congress opponent from the Malehra seat with a 25% margin.

Uma Bharati resigned from the post of CM in August 2004, on the issue of the right to hoist the National Flag, when a decade old case against her was resurrected.In November 2004,she was suspended from the Bhartiya Janata Party.But in May 2005 she was brought back into national executive.But that was short lived.She formed the BJSP(Bhartiya Janashakti Party) which lost the by-election for her assembly seat of Bada Malhera.BJSP has also experienced defeats in all Lok Sabha bypolls which the party has contested.The BJP candidate for Gwalior was the daughter of her mentor, the late Vijayaraje Scindia. In another major turn of events, Uma agreed to withdraw her candidates to the 2007 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections at the request of Ashok Singhal,who is a’Vishwa Hindu Parishad chief’.

Sushma Swaraj

Sushma swaraj was born on february 14,1952 in Ambala Cantt. in Haryana. She took education at S.D. College, Ambala Cantt. Haryana and got a B.A. degree. She completed LL.B. from the Law Department of Panjab University, Chandigarh. She  married  Swaraj Kaushal on July 13, 1975 and has one daughter. She is a  lawyer by profession. She began her political career as a student leader in the 1970s, organizing protests against Indira Gandhi’s government.

She was elected as a member of  Rajya Sabha in 1990. she was the first woman Chief Minister of Delhi. In 1999, she took on a high profile as she contested against , Sonia Gandhi,who is the Congress party’s President, and she was defeated by Sonia Gandhi.
She returned to Parliament in April 2000 as a Rajya Sabha member from Uttarakhand. She was  Minister of Information and Broadcasting,  from September 2000 to January 2003.When Congress won the elections Sushma Swaraj threatened to shave her head, wear a white saree and eat groundnuts,  if Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born Congress leader, became Prime Minister.She was re-elected to the the Rajya Sabha in April 2006.She was president of Hindu Sahitya Sammelan for Four years.

Sonia Gandhi

Sonia Gandhi was born in Edvige Antonia Albina Mainoon in Italy on 9 December 1946.She is an Indian politician, the President of the Indian National Congress Party(NCP).  She married Rajeev in 1969. She is widow of former Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi who is the son of the former PM of India,Indira Gandhi.She is the  leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party. She was named the third most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine in  2004 and currently she ranks 6th in the world. In 1984,she actively compaigned against her sister in law Menaka Gandhi who was running against Rajeev in Amethi.

Sonia joined the Congress Party as a primary member in the Calcutta Plenary Session in 1997 and became party leader in 1998.

Within 62 days of her joining  she became the party president – a record for any Indian politician.

In 1999 she contested Loksabha elections from Bellary, Karnataka and Amethi, Uttar Pradesh . She won both the seats. In Bellary she defeated  BJP leader, Sushma Swaraj. In 2004, she was elected to the Lok Sabha from Rai Bareli, UP.She was elected the Leader of Opposition in 1999.

Jayalalitha.

J.Jayalalitha was born on February  24,1948. She is the former Chief Minister and the current leader of the opposition  of the Govt. of Tamil Nadu. She is popularly called Amma by her followers.She was popoular film star in Tamil Film industry before her entry in the politics.

She was educated at Bishop Cotton Girls High School  at Banglore and later she moved to the Madras Presidency along with her mother Sandhya.In 1981 she joined AIADMK and she was nominated for the Rajya Sabha in 1988.With the help of M.G.Ramchandran who is also an actor Jayalalitha entered in the politics.In 1989 she won the elections to  the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly becoming the first woman to be elected as the Leader of the opposition.

In 1991 she was re-elected to the legislative assembly and became the first elected woman Chief Minister of the Tamil Nadu.However due to anti-incumbency wave she lost the power to the DMK in 1996 in a landslide defeat.She returned to the power  with the huge majority in 2001 elections.In 2006 elections her party  lost the power to the DMK government.

In her latest speech she quoted that in future her party will rule India and would return to power in Tamil Nadu.

Mehmooba Mufti

She was born on May 22,1959 at Anantnag district in Jammu and Kashmir.She is the daughter of the former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Mufti Mohmmad Sayeed.She is the president of the Jammu and Kashmir people Democratic party.She completed her law from the University of Kashmir.

When elections for the state assembly were held in 1996 ,she was elected from the Bijbehara on an National Congress Party  ticket.She then became the leader of the opposition. She is one of the few woman politicians of Jammu and Kashmir who is recognised all over the India.

In 1999 she split from Indian National Congress party to form Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party and became the vice president of the party.She was elected to the Lok-Sabha in 2004 and is the prominent member of the ruling Congress-Party led coalition.

Undoubtly ,she is Kashmir’s well known woman politician.

Brinda Karat

She was born on 17 october 1947,in calcutta at West Bengal.In 2005 she became the first women member of the Communist Party of India(Marxist).From 1993 to 2004 she was he General Secretary of All India Democratic Women’s Association and thereafter  the vice-president.She was educated at elite Welham Girls School at Dehradun and in 1971 she took the Master’s degree in History from the University of Calcutta.

In 1967, she left for London where she  worked with Air India at a Bond Street for four years.In 1971, she decided to leave her job and return to Calcutta. she joined the Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI (M) in 1971, under the guidance of B.T. Ranadive.

In 1975, she shifted to Delhi and started working as a trade union organiser with textile mill workers in North Delhi. Brinda grew to be active with worker’s movements and the Indian women’s movements . She gained prominence in the campaign for reform of rape laws in the 1980s. Karat resigned from the central committee of the Communist Party of India(Marxist)protesting the lack of representation of women. Even today, Brinda stands out as a prominent campaigner for gender issues .

On April 11, 2005, Karat was elected to the Indian Parliament, Rajya Sabha as a CPI(M) member, for West Bengal.

In 2005, only after the inclusion of 5 women members to the Central Committee did Brinda Karat agree to be nominated to the exclusive 17 member Politburo. The Politburo is the highest decision-making body of the party and Brinda Karat is its first woman member.

Mamta Banerjee

Mamata Banerjee was born on January 5, 1955 in Kolkata.She is a Indian politician from the State of West Bengal and currently under fire for her opposition to industrialisation. She is the founder and chief executive of the All India Trinamool Congress Party.

She completed degrees in work education and an LLB (Indian standard of law degree) from Calcutta University.  In 1984, she became one of India’s youngest parliamentarians ever, beating veteran Communist statesman Somnath Chatterjee, for the Jadavpur seat in West Bengal. She was also the General-Secretary of the All India Youth Congress.  She retained the Kolkata South seat in the 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2004 elections.

In the Rao government formed in 1991, she was made the Union Minister of State for Human Resources Development, Youth Affairs and Sports, and Women and Child Development.In 1993 she was discharged of her portfolios . In April 1996, she alleged that Congress was behaving as a stooge of the CPI-M in West Bengal. Mamta Banerjee claimed that she was the lone voice of protest and wanted a “clean Congress”.

In 1997, Mamata Banerjee split the Congress Party in West Bengal and established the All India Trinamool Congress. It quickly became the primary opposition to the long-standing Communist government in the state.
In 1999, Mamata joined the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government and was allocated the Railways Ministry.

In 2000,She presented her first Railway Budget. In it she fulfilled many of her promises to her home state West Bengal. She introduced a new biweekly New Delhi-Sealdah Rajdhani Express train and four express trains connecting various parts of West Bengal, namely the Howrah-Purulia Express, Sealdah-New Jalpaiguri Express, Shalimar-Bankura Express and the Sealdah-Amritsar Superfast Express
Mamata Banerjee suffered further setbacks in 2005, when her party lost control of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and the sitting Mayor defected from her party. In 2006, the Trinamool Congress was defeated in West Bengal’s Assembly Elections, losing more than half of its sitting members.

In November 2006, Mamata Banerjee was forcibly stopped on her way to Singur for a rally against a proposed Tata Motors car project.

Mamata Banerjee forced   car project Tata Nano to be relocated from West Bengal to Gujarat.

Sheila Dixit

Sheila Dixit was born on March 31, 1938.Holder of Master of Arts degree,Smt.Dixit received her education at Convent of Jesus and Mary School, New Delhi and later in Miranda House, Delhi University. She was married into the family of Shri Umashankar Dikshit, noted freedom fighter and a former Governor and Union Cabinet Minister.
She is the Chief Minister of Delhi since 1998. She belongs to the Indian National Congress. Dixit is the second woman Chief Minister of Delhi.

From 1984 to 1989, she represented Kannauj Parliamentary Constituency of Uttar Pradesh. As a member of Parliament, she served on the Estimates Committee of Lok Sabha.  She represented India at United Nations Commission on Status of Women for five years (1984-1989).   She served as a Minister in the Union Government during 1986 – 89, first as the Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and later as a Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s office. During 1984 – 89 she represented Kannauj Parliamentary Constituency of Uttar Pradesh.

Smt.Dixit is longlisted for the 2008 World Mayor award. As Chief Minister of Delhi Sheila Dixit was awarded the Best Chief Minister of India, by Journalist Association of India

In the early 1970s, she was chairperson of the Young Women’s Association and was instrumental in the setting up two of most successful hostels for working women in Delhi.

She is also the Secretary of the Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust.

Smt.Sheila Dixit has been especially intrested in the promotion of handicrafts and rural artisans all over the country.

Mayawati Kumari

Mayawati Naina Kumari was born on January 15, 1956 in Delhi. Her father Prabhu Das was a clerk in the telecommunications department in Delhi. Her mother is Ram Rati. Mayawati completed her graduation from Kalindi College in Delhi and holds a Bachelor of Law degree.She also holds a Bachelor of Education degree and she was a teacher in Delhi until joining full time politics in 1984.

She is current Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh.. She is the highest income tax payer among all politicians in India.She payed 26 crore rupees for the year 2007-08.

In 1984, Kanshi Ram founded the BSP as a party representing the Dalits, and Mayawati was one of the key people in the new organization. In 2001, Kanshi Ram named Mayawati as his successor.

Mayawati first won for the Lok Sabha elections in 1989 from Bijnor. In 1995, while a member of the Rajya Sabha, she became a Chief Minister in a short-lived coalition government, and validated her position by winning from two constituencies in 1996. Kumari was again Chief Minister for a short period in 1997, and then for a somewhat longer term in coalition with the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) from 2002 to 2003.

Mayawati ‘s party won the 2007 elections with majority and surprised everybody. On 13 May 2007 Mayawati was sworn in as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh for the fourth time .

In her tenures as CM , she has erected a number of monuments to Dalit heroes like Dr.Bhimrao Ambedkar and others also of Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj, Gautam Buddha.