Rita Bahuguna

Rita Bahuguna Biography

Rita Bahuguna is an active politician belonging to Indian National Congress. She is the daughter of famous freedom fighter and politician, Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna who has served as the Chief Minister of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Her brother Vijay Bahuguna is also an active leader of Indian National Congress who has served as the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand. Currently Rita serves as the president of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee. She has been awarded with "Most Distinguished Women in South Asia" award by United Nations Award of Excellence. She is a former vice-president of the National Council of Women.

Rita Bahuguna was born to Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna and Kamla Bahuguna on 22 July 1949 in Uttarakhand. After Mastering Arts, she completed PhD in History. Then she joined as a faculty of University of Allahabad. Later she became the professor in Medieval and Modern History. From 1995 to 2000, she served as the mayor of Allahabad. Since 2003, she serves as the president of the All India Mahila Congress. She became the president of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee in 2007. She has contested to Lok Sabha twice. But she was not able to win a seat.

In July 2009, she was detained for allegedly making derogatory remarks about Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati and later sent to the Moradabad jail on 14 days' judicial custody. Her remarks were on the increasing rapes of the state and women being paid 25,000 rupees compensation after being raped. She commented that such raped women should throw the money to Mayawati’s face and tell, ‘you should also be raped and I will give you 10 million rupees’. For the second time she was arrested from Meerut in 2011 to take part in an agitation staged by the local farmers condemning the state government policies.

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Updated: March 11, 2014