CHENNAI: A native of Tamil Nadu with an illustrious lineage, new NCW Chairperson Lalitha Kumaramangalam made her foray into politics after the death of her brother Rangarajan Kumaramangalam, who had quit the Congress and joined the BJP in 1997.
Her father Mohan Kumaramangalam, however, had been a Communist ideologue, politician and trade union leader. Her paternal grandfather P Subbarayan served as chief minister of Madras Presidency, while her mother Kalyani Mukherjee was the niece of former West Bengal chief minister Ajoy Mukherjee.
An economics graduate from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, Lalitha Kumaramangalam contested the Lok Sabha elections twice in 2004 and 2009 from Tirupur and Puducherry and lost on both occasions. She runs Prakriti, an NGO. After the Narendra Modi-led NDA government came to power in the recently held Lok Sabha elections, she was appointed as one of the BJP national spokespersons by party president Amit Shah. A member of the BJP national executive, she was earlier a national secretary of the party. After Union minister Pon Radhakrishnan, Lalitha Kumaramangalam is the second prominent face from Tamil Nadu, who has shot into the limelight in the national capital and occupies a constitutional post.