She is the first woman speaker of the state Assembly
Sunday, 27 March 2022 | PNS | Dehradun
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA from Kotdwar, Ritu Khanduri Bhushan was elected speaker of Uttarakhand Assembly unopposed on Saturday. She is the first woman speaker of the state Assembly. She had filed her nomination papers on Thursday and was the only one in the contention for the position.
The proclamation of her election was made by the protem speaker of assembly Banshidhar Bhagat after which she was accompanied to the chair by chief minister and leader of the house Pushkar Singh Dhami and other senior leaders.
In his address the newly elected speaker said that her election is an honour for the women of the state. She assured the house that she would put her best effort to carry forward the high ideals and traditions of the assembly. She appealed to all the members of the house to help her run the house. Khanduri said that for the first time in the history of Uttarakhand a woman has been elected as the speaker. She asked the new members to actively participate in the proceedings and try to learn from the experience of the seniors.
Born on January 29, 1965 in Nainital, Khanduri is the daughter of former CM Major General (retd) BC Khanduri and is a second time MLA . She has done her graduation from Raghunath Girls College, Meerut (UP) and is Post Graduate (PG) in History from Rajasthan University. Khanduri has worked as a faculty member in AMITY University at NOIDA from the year 2006 to 2017 and has authored three books on Indian history. Her husband is a senior IAS officer currently posted in Delhi as secretary in the Government of India.
In the year 2017 she was elected for the first time from Yamkeshwar assembly constituency. In 2022 she was shifted to neighbouring Kotdwar seat after Harak Singh Rawat defected to the Congress party. In the election she defeated Surendra Singh Negi of Congress. Khanduri is the sixth speaker of Uttarakhand assembly. Prakash Pant, Yashpal Arya, Harbans Kapoor, Govind Singh Kunjwal and Prem Chand Agarwal have donned the chair of speaker from the year 2000 till date.
