Kamlesh Dhanda lone woman inducted into BJP-JJP cabinet

Chandigarh: Kamlesh Dhanda, the lone woman MLA inducted as minister in the Manohar Lal Khattar-led coalition government on Thursday, is the third woman who has become a minister in the state after the death of her husband. She had defeated former Union minister Jai Prakash of Congress from Kalayat seat of Kaithal district in the recently held assembly polls.

Earlier, Savitri Jindal, wife of former minister and industrialist O P Jindal, and Kiran Choudhry, wife of former minister Surender Singh, had become ministers after their husbands died in an air crash in 2005. Both Savitri and Kiran were then elected as MLAs from Hisar and Tosham, respectively, on Congress ticket and inducted as ministers in the then Bhupinder Singh Hooda-led government.

Kamlesh, 52, is the wife of late Narsingh Dhanda, who had served as minister in the Devi Lal government in 1987. She joined politics after the death of her husband.

Her name was not in the list of probable MLAs who were expected to be inducted in the ministry. Instead, Seema Trikha, BJP’s second time MLA from Badkhal in Faridabad, was the frontrunner for a ministerial berth. However, her name was dropped after the induction of Mool Chand Sharma, another MLA from Faridabad district. Kamlesh has been inducted from women as well as Jat quota and as representative of Kaithal district.

Kamlesh, who is a member of BJP’s state executive, had dropped her studies after doing her BSc first year in home science from Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak. Her son Tushar Dhanda, is studying law in Delhi University, while her daughters Hariata and Ankita Dhanda had campaigned rigrously for her during the assembly polls. They were also managing her social media accounts.

The state assembly has nine women MLAs, of whom only three are from BJP. In the previous regime of BJP government, Kavita Jain, MLA from Sonipat, had served as lone woman minister.