Renuka Chowdhury Age, Caste, Family, Biography & More

Bio/Wiki
Profession	Politician
Physical Stats & More
Height (approx.)	in centimeters- 163 cm in meters- 1.63 m in feet & inches- 5’ 4”
Eye Colour	Black
Hair Colour	Black
Politics
Political Party	• Indian National Congress (INC) (1998-Present) • Telugu Desam Party (TDP) (1998-1984)
Political Journey	• Joined Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in 1984 • Became corporator at Banjara Hills, Hyderabad Municipal Corporation • Lost by-election on Panyam assembly seat in 1993 • Served as Member of the Rajya Sabha and Chief Whip of the Telugu Desam Parliamentary party from 1986 to 1998 • Served as the Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare from 1997 to 1998 • Joined the INC in 1998 • Elected as MLA from Khammam in 1999 • Served as a Member of Committee on Finance from 1999 to 2000 • Served as a Member of Committee on the Empowerment of Women from 2000 to 2001 • Re-elected as MLA from Khammam in 2004 • Served as the Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Ministry of Tourism from 23 May 2004 to 28 January 2006 • Served as the Minister of Women and Child Development from 29 January 2006 to 22 May 2009 • Contested and lost the Khammam Lok Sabha seat in 2009 • Served as Member of the Rajya Sabha from 3 April 2012 to 2 April 2018
Personal Life
Date of Birth	13 August 1954 (Friday)
Age (as of 2024)	70 Years
Birthplace	Visakhapatnam, Andhra State (now Andhra Pradesh), India
Zodiac sign	Leo
Nationality	Indian
Hometown	Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh
School	Welham Girls' School, Dehradun, Uttarakhand
College/University	Karnataka University
Educational Qualification(s)	• M. A. in Industrial Psychology from Karnataka University (1976) [1]MyNeta • Diploma in marketing management, public relations, and advertising [2]Hindustan Times
Caste	Kamma [3]Hindustan Times
Address	H. No. 8-2-680, Road No. 1, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad-500034, Andhra Pradesh, India
Controversies	• Cop Assault Case: In 1993, while serving as the Union tourism minister, Renuka Chowdhury faced the charges of manhandling a traffic policeman, Janki Ram. Allegedly, Chowdhury abused and beat the traffic cop as he prevented her from driving across a road which was sanitised and closed for the public for the prime minister's use. The incident happened on 20 January 1993 around 7.50 pm on a route at Kautilya Marg near Teen Murti in New Delhi. The police filed a chargesheet against her in May 1993, but a Metropolitan Magistrate refused to accept it unless she was arrested. She was finally discharged from the case in 2005. [4]The Times of India • Ties with Tax Evader Hassan Ali Khan: In 2011, Renuka Chowdhury attracted controversy when her name popped up in Kashinath Tapuriah's testimony. Tapuriah is a Kolkata-based industrialist, who was accused in the tax evasion and money laundering case of Hasan Ali Khan. Kashinath Tapuriah's testimony stated that Khan had gifted a Rs 1.2 crore diamond to Renuka. The testimony read, "I had taken a diamond from Soir Jewellers in Mumbai, owned by building contractor Abbas Naqvi, to keep with me. (It) cost around Rs 1.2 crore. Khan took it saying he would give me the money or the diamond within three months. He told me that he wanted to give the diamond to an important person and referred to Renuka Chowdhury. She is a politician. Khan had told me that she was a very close friend. I was never paid for the diamond…” Further, he added, "I had gone to meet Khan at a flat in Mumbai. Chaudhary was present there and Khan introduced me to him. Later, I came to know that Khan was staying with Chaudhary in the flat.” Renuka dismissed the allegations and sent defamation notices to media houses which had printed the false news about her based on Tapuriah's testimony. Additionally, she explained that Tapuriah, who did not deliver the diamond himself, might have mixed up her name with another woman politician. [5]India Today • Booked for Calling Mangalore a “Talibanized” City: On 24 January 2009, Sri Ram Sena attacked a group of young women and men in a pub in Mangalore, claiming that they were violating traditional Indian values. While talking about the event in the media, Renuka commented that "Talibanization was happening in Mangalore.” Thereafter, she was served with a notice for her reported statement by the Mangalore Mayor Ganesh Hosabettu for portraying Mangaloreans in a bad light and tarnishing the city’s image. He claimed that she was glorifying isolated incidents and making generalized comments about the city. [6]NDTV - YouTube • Booked for Grabbing the Collar of a Police Officer: In 2022, Chowdhury was booked for allegedly grabbing the collar of a sub-inspector of police named Upender Babu and using unparliamentary language. The incident happened during the ‘Chalo Raj Bhavan’ protest organised by the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) in Hyderabad when Chowdhury was trying to make her way to Raj Bhavan. TPCC had organised the protest against the questioning of Rahul Gandhi by the Enforcement Directorate in a money-laundering case. She received immense criticism when its video went viral on the internet. [7]The Hindu Later, Renuka tried to justify her actions saying, "I didn’t assault, I don’t have anything against that young man. He never did anything to me. I was losing balance and I held on. If you move, I will have to hold to steady myself as we were being pushed and bullied from the back..”
Relationships & More
Marital Status	Married
Marriage Date	7 October 1973
Family
Husband/Spouse	Sreedhar Chowdhury (businessman)
Children	Daughter(s)- Poojita Chowdhury (a documentary filmmaker), Tejaswini Chowdhury
Parents	Father- Kanumilli Suryanarayana Rao (deceased) (Air Commodore in the Indian Air Force) Mother- Vasundhra Rao
Siblings	Renuka Chowdhury has two younger sister.
Money Factor
Assets/Properties	Movable Assets • Cash: Rs. 1,30,000 • Deposits in Banks, Financial Institutions and Non-Banking Financial Companies (approx.): Rs. 1,56,00,000 • Bonds, Debentures and Shares in companies (approx.): Rs. 1,43,00,000 • LIC or other insurance Policies (approx.): Rs 2,54,00,000 • Jewellery (approx.): Rs 11,58,000 Immovable Assets • Agricultural Land (approx.): Rs. 12,17,00,000 • Residential Buildings (approx.): Rs 20,00,00,000 Note: The given estimates of moveable and immovable assets are as per the financial year 2018-2019. It excludes the assets owned by her husband and dependents. [8]MyNeta
Net Worth (as of 2019)	Rs. 26,47,99,918 [9]MyNeta Note: It excludes the net worth of her husband and dependents. [10]MyNeta

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.
  

  Poojita Chowdhury and Chaitanya

• 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.

PM @narendramodi's Ramayan joke on Renuka Chowdhury's laughter has Rajya Sabha LOL https://t.co/ykpiXuX9VJ pic.twitter.com/Cm3U7HSR6m

— NDTV (@ndtv) February 7, 2018

• 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.