Renuka Chowdhury

Some Lesser Known Facts About Renuka Chowdhury

• Renuka Chowdhury is an Indian politician and a member of the Indian National Congress (INC). She served as a Member of the Rajya Sabha for Andhra Pradesh from 1986 to 1998 and from 2012 to 2018. She has also held the independent charge as the Union Minister of State for the Ministry of Women and Child Development (2006-2009) and Tourism (2004-2006) in the Government of India.

• Born into the family of an air commander, Renuka spent her childhood living in different parts of the country, learning different languages, and understanding different cultures.

• After her marriage in 1973, she remained a homemaker till 1984 when she ventured into politics. She started her political journey as a corporator at Banjara Hills, Hyderabad Municipal Corporation.

• In 1993, Renuka, as a TDP candidate, contested and lost a by-election from the Panyam assembly constituency. Congress leader and chief minister Kotla Vijayabhaskar Reddy was contesting the seat to fulfil his constitutional obligation.

• She developed differences with N. T. Rama Rao, the founder of the Telugu Desam Party, in 1994 when she campaigned against him in the Hindupur constituency. Thereafter, NTR expelled her from the party and asked the Rajya Sabha chairman to suspend her.

• Following her expulsion, she remained a member of a separate party TDP-2, formed by her, until the end of the term.

• She was enraged when actress-turned-politician Jaya Prada was nominated for a third term in the Rajya Sabha instead of her in 1998. When she questioned Chandrababu Naidu’s decision to join hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Naidu expelled her from the TDP on charges of indiscipline.

• Previously, Renuka’s daughter Poojita was married to a London-based opthalmologist, Satya Sai Prasad, but the marriage ended in divorce. The event made headlines as Renuka Chowdhary sued Poojita’s in-laws for harassment for dowry. Later, Poojita got married to Chaitanya, an NRI based in the USA.

  

• Renuka is known for giving controversial statements. Once, she made headlines when she described Jaya Prada as a “bimbo” and said that Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu looked like a pickpocket standing at a bus stand. In 2007, she advised to women to “trust condoms more than men.” Later, she explained the statement and said,
  

  People should understand the context (of the statement) — that most women get HIV/AIDS from their husbands. I just wanted to caution them.”

  The statement was criticized by many who believed that more subtle ways of cautioning would have been better. On the other hand, many condemned Chowdhury’s advice in encouraging women to purchase condoms themselves as such women get branded as sex workers by society. In the aftermath of the 2009 Mangalore pub attack, she launched a Pub Bharo Andolan in response to Sri Ram Sene’s Valentine’s Day threat. She provoked the youth to surge pubs to teach a befitting lesson to the moral police.

• She was described as a ‘men hater’ and ‘creator of gender bias in the Indian laws’ for her strong advocacy of the Domestic Violence Act, 2005, which was introduced while she was heading the women and child development ministry. Apparently, the law was passed without any debate or discussion on its relevance or pros and cons to Indian society prior to its enactment. Her defeat in the 2009 general elections was celebrated by many who had been demanding the abolition of the Domestic Violence Act. The act was opposed by Save Family Foundation (SFF), alleging that the act was pro-women and was often misused in cases of marital discord. Sarkar, the Delhi coordinator of Save Family Foundation (SFF), said,
  

  Renuka is among the people who introduced the draconian Section 498-A of IPC and the Domestic Violence Act. These laws have become a tool to harass married men by giving unlimited benefits to wives.”

• While serving as the women and child development minister in 2008, Renuka Chowdhury proposed the distribution of pre-packaged food to malnourished children under the Integrated Child Development Scheme instead of freshly cooked hot meals. The proposal was rejected by both the Planning Commission and the cabinet committee on economic affairs, citing that packaged foods could lead to serious health risks for children by exposing them to excessive doses of micronutrients. The cabinet committee also highlighted that centralised procurement of packaged mixes could lead to corruption.

• In 2018, she made headlines when she burst into laughter in the middle of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech in the Rajya Sabha. Modi took a dig at Renuka and stunned her into silence by saying,
  

  Sabhapati ji meri aapse vinti hai Renuka ji ko kuch mat kahiye. Ramayan serial ke baad aisi hansi sunne ka saubhagya aaj jaake mila hai ”
  (I request you to let Renuka ji continue. After the Ramayan serial, we got the privilege of hearing this kind of laughter only today.)

  Thereafter, she was heavily trolled on the internet.

• In 2016, she received criticism for a viral picture which showed her servant standing beside her while she and her family dined at a restaurant. While the entire family sat at the table, the child’s nanny was standing next to her. Renuka’s insensitive behaviour was questioned citing that she had previously served as the Union Minister of State for Ministry of Women and Child Development.