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Shruti Choudhry
Shruti Choudhry (born 3 October 1975) is an Indian politician from Haryana belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party.[4] Since October 2024, she has been serving as a Cabinet Minister in the Haryana Government after being elected as a legislative member (MLA) from Tosham (Bhiwani).[5][5] Choudhry is the granddaughter of the former Chief Minister of Haryana, Bansi Lal.[3] Previously, she was a member of the Indian National Congress since 2005 and represented Bhiwani constituency in the Indian Parliament from 2009 to 2014.[6] Early lifeShruti Choudhry was born in New Delhi on 3 October 1975.[3] Her parents were Surender Singh and Kiran Choudhry, both of whom had served as ministers in the government of Haryana. Her paternal grandfather was the former Chief minister of Haryana, Bansi Lal and her family is among the major Political families of Haryana.[3][6] Her family belongs to the Jat community.[7] Choudhry's early education was at the Convent of Jesus & Mary school and Delhi Public School, R K Puram, after which she studied in Oxford, England. She earned a B.A. from the University of Delhi and then a LL.B. from B. R. Ambedkar University in Agra. On 7 March 2003, she married Arunabh Choudhry, a lawyer.[3][6] Political CareerAt first practising as a lawyer, Choudhry turned to politics following the death of her father in 2005. Choudhry was chosen by the Indian National Congress party to contest the 2009 Indian general election in the Bhiwani-Mahendragarh constituency of the Lok Sabha. Mainly as a consequence of the goodwill that existed for her family in the area,[6] she defeated her nearest rival, Ajay Singh Chautala of the Indian National Lok Dal, by a margin of 55,097 votes. Her grandfather had previously won the same seat three times, and her father had done so twice.[1] During her tenure as a member of Parliament (2009-2014), Choudhry served on the Lok Sabha committees for agriculture and empowerment of women from 2009.[3] She did not win re-election to the Lok Sabha seat in 2014.[1] In the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections, the Congress fielded a Hooda loyalist, Rao Dan Singh, instead of Shruti Choudhry from the Bhiwani-Mahendragarh seat.[8] In June 2024, she and her mother, Kiran Choudhry, quit the Congress party due to the growing differences with the party leader and ex-Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.[2] Subsequently, both of them joined the BJP on 19 June 2024, in the presence of several state BJP leaders including Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini and former CM Manohar Lal Khattar.[4] After joining BJP, Choudhry said that she was inspired by Prime Minister Modi, who has made "India's name shine across the world," and that earlier Modi and Khattar had also worked along with Chaudhary Bansi Lal.[9] There were mixed reactions from the Congress party over Choudhry and her mother's exit, where some leaders called it a loss for the party,[10] while others asserted that it won't make any difference.[11][12] According to political analysts, Choudhry's induction may help BJP's standing among the Jat community while also expanding its base in the Bhiwani region.[7] In October 2024, Shruti Choudhry won from the Tosham Assembly constituency in the 2024 Haryana assembly elections by defeating the Congress candidate by 14257 votes.[5] References
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