 "Savitri Jindal, one of India's wealthiest women, joins Haryana poll fray | Haryana Elections News")
Savitri Jindal with Abhyuday Jindal and Tim Cook (Photo: X/ @@abhyudayjindal)
The outgoing Haryana Assembly had only nine women legislators, continuing the trend of poor representation of women in the 90-member House since the first Assembly elections in the state in 1967.
But the 2024 elections could change that with several well-known women in the fray, including Olympian Vinesh Phogat and former Lok Sabha member Shruti Choudhry, the granddaughter of former chief minister Bansi Lal.
On Thursday, the last day for filing nominations, Savitri Jindal, one of the wealthiest women in the country, also entered the electoral fray as an independent candidate from Hisar.
Savitri is the mother of industrialist Naveen Jindal, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Kurukshetra MP, and the widow of industrialist O P Jindal. She had expected the BJP’s ticket from Hisar. The BJP, however, went with sitting MLA and state minister Kamal Gupta.
Forbes India had listed Savitri as the richest woman in the country this year, with a net worth of $29.1 billion. She is the chairperson of the steel and power conglomerate, O P Jindal Group. Savitri had represented Hisar as a Congress MLA twice earlier. In 2005, she won a bypoll after her husband, the sitting legislator from the seat, died in a helicopter crash. She won again in 2009 and served as a minister in the Bhupinder Hooda government. O P Jindal had won the seat consecutively from 1991 to 2005.
Others to file their nominations on Thursday were Congress Rajya Sabha MP Randeep Surjewala’s son Aditya Surjewala from Kaithal and BJP’s Shruti Choudhry from Tosham.
First Published: Sep 12 2024 | 8:34 PM IST
