She is a former Union minister and a highly regarded leader in Congress circles in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. For the past three years, Renuka Chowdhury, 67, had been lying low, out of the public eye that followed her around for much of her political career. But that changed on Thursday after news cameras caught her grabbing a police sub-inspector’s collar during the Telangana Congress’s protest in Hyderabad against the Enforcement Directorate’s questioning of Rahul Gandhi in the National Herald case. Though Chowdhury clarified that she had no intention of humiliating the police official and claimed that she “caught his collar” after losing her balance while being pushed around, the police filed a case against the Congress leader based on the sub-inspector’s complaint. Chowdhury, who is known to speak her mind, surprised everyone last week when she turned up at a “Mahila Darbar” organised by Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundarajan on June 10. At the event, she spoke eloquently about the safety and security of women. A source said she kept away from active politics the past few years as she was upset with the bickering and factionalism in the state Congress. “She also does not brook any interference, police or otherwise, and will not mince words,” the source added. Chowdhury has taken on the “moral police” several times in the past, calling such forces “Talibanised” when they opposed Valentine’s Day celebrations. A champion of the Me Too campaign, she was last seen at her fiery best in April 2018 outside Parliament when she said the Indian legislature was not immune to sexual misconduct. She ticked off political leaders for making sexist remarks, taking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Minister Kiren Rijiju for allegedly making comments denigrating the dignity of women. During a parliament session in February 2018, Modi had compared Chowdhury’s laughter to that of ‘Shurpanakha’, the sister of Rakshasa king Ravana in the epic Ramayana. In the days to follow, as controversy erupted, the Congress leader fought back valiantly and said leaders were afraid of happy women who laugh. Chowdhury is the rare politician who made her space in Telangana politics despite being from Andhra Pradesh. She began her political journey in 1984 when she joined the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). She was in the Rajya Sabha for two consecutive terms from 1986 to 1998 and was the TDP’s chief whip in the Upper House. She even served as Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare for a year in the H D Deve Gowda government. Towards the end of 1998, Chowdhury quit the TDP and joined the Congress. The following year, she contested the Lok Sabha polls from Khammam and represented the constituency in the Lower House for the next 10 years. In the UPA government, she served as the Minister of State for Tourism and later as the Union Minister of State for Women and Child Development. Even though the UPA returned to power in a convincing fashion, Chowdhury lost to the TDP’s Nama Nageshwara Rao from Khammam. After a brief hiatus, she became a party spokesperson and was re-elected to Rajya Sabha in 2012. She did not contest the parliamentary polls in 2014 but tried her luck again in 2019. She again lost to Rao who contested on a Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) ticket. “The 2019 defeat really upset her because she always worked hard in Khammam. She was of the opinion that Rao, who quit TDP to join TRS, won because of the pro-TRS wave and not because he did any work in the constituency. After that, she lay low mostly. She became very active recently when Rahul Gandhi was called for questioning by the ED and she vehemently opposed it,” said a Congress leader.
