Rita Bahuguna

Rita Bahuguna Joshi (born 22 July 1949) is a Bhartiya Janta Party politician and an MLA from Lucknow Cantt constituency of the state of Uttar Pradesh. She was the president of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee from 2007 to 2012. She is the daughter of Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna, a former Chief Minister of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. She joined Bhartiya Janta Party on 20 October 2016.

Early life

She holds an MA and a PhD in History and is a professor in Medieval and Modern History at the University of Allahabad. She is also a recipient of a United Nations Award of Excellence as being among the "Most Distinguished Women in South Asia". ^[1]

Political career

Rita Bahuguna held the post of mayor of Allahabad from 1995-2000. She is a former vice-president of the National Council of Women, has been president of the All India Mahila Congress since 2003 and of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee since September 2007. She has twice contested unsuccessfully in elections to the Lok Sabha. the lower house of the Parliament of India. She was elected a Member of the Legislative Assembly for the Lucknow Cantonment in the 2012 state elections..She contested for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections from Lucknow and lost.^[2]

She joined BJP on 20-Oct-2016 in presence of BJP president Amit Shah after spending 24 years in Congress ^[3]

Arrest

On 16 July 2009, she was detained for allegedly making derogatory remarks about Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati.^[4] She was later sent to the Moradabad jail on 14 days' judicial custody.^[5]

Joshi's speech was about the law and order situation in Uttar Pradesh and the increasing number of rapes in the state. She cited a few cases in which some women were paid 25,000 rupees compensation after being raped. She remarked that simply compensating the women with money was not enough. Women who are raped should "throw the money at Mayawati's face and tell her 'you should also be raped and I will give you 10 million rupees" she said in the speech.

She was one of the party leaders arrested by the Meerut range police on 11 May 2011 from the Bhatta Parsaul village of western Uttar Pradesh along with the fellow leaders Rahul Gandhi and Digvijay Singh. They were taking part in an agitation staged by the local farmers condemning the state government policies. A top police officer of the range confirmed their detention to the media adding that they were about to produce the trio to a local court on the following working day.^[6]

Personal life

Rita Bahuguna Joshi is married to P C Joshi and has a son. She has two brothers Vijay Bahuguna was the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand and Shekhar Bahuguna who had contested in 2012 assembly election but could not succeed from Phaphamau constituency in Allahabad, UP.

References