Sumitra Mahajan

Sumitra Mahajan Biography

Sumitra Mahajan is an Indian politician who currently serves as the Speaker of the Lok Sabha since June 5, 2014. One of the prominent members of Bharatiya Janata Party, she has been elected to Lok Sabha for eight times till now and represents Indore constituency of Madhya Pradesh since 1989. She is the eldest and senior most female member of Lok Sabha at present and only the second woman Speaker of the country, after Meira Kumar. Sumitra has earlier served as Union minister holding the portfolios of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Communication & Information Technology and Human Resource Development in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s cabinet during the term 1999-2004.

She was born in 1943 to Usha and Purushotam Sathe in Chiplun, Maharashtra. She completed MA and LLB from Indore University, now known by the name Devi Ahilya University. In fact Sumitra has acknowledged the great social reformer Ahilyabai Holkar as her inspirational figure throughout her life. Got associated with Bharatiya Janata Party, she won the Lok Sabha Elections for the first time in 1989. She contested against the prominent congress leader, Prakash Chandra Sethi, who has also served as Chief Minister and won her first ticket to Lok Sabha. Since then she has been continuously elected for 8 terms. Thus she is one of the prominent women leaders belonging to the party.

Throughout her career she has maintained a clean track record and known as a leader of simplicity and honesty. Popularly known as Tai, during her tenure as a cabinet minister she has brought many reforms to Indore, the constituency from which she has won 8 times. On 6 June 2014, Sumitra was unanimously elected as the Speaker of the 16th Lok Sabha.

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Updated: March 06, 2016