Ritu Jaiswal is an Indian politician and a member of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). She became the national spokesperson of RJD in 2021 and the national president of RJD (women’s organization) in 2023. Previously, she served as Mukhiya of Gram Panchayat Singhwahini in Sitamarhi, Bihar (2016-2021).
Wiki/Biography
Ritu Jaiswal was born on Tuesday, March 1, 1977, in Hajipur, Bihar, India (age 46; as of 2023). Her zodiac sign is Pisces. She attended St. Paul’s High School in Hajipur. Thereafter, she pursued her BA in Economics from Vaishali Mahila College, Hajipur. In 1996, she married a bureaucrat named Arun Kumar and started living in Khel Gaon, Delhi.
appearance
Height (approximately): 5′4″
Hair color: black
Eye color: black
family and caste
She belongs to the Hindu Rajput community, a minority in Bihar.
Parents and siblings
Her father Bhola Prashad Choudhary (deceased) was murdered. Her mother’s name is Asha Jaiswal. She has two brothers, one younger and one older. The name of one of her brothers is Raju.
Ritu Jaiswal and her mother Asha Jaiswal
Ritu Jaiswal and her brother
husband and children
On December 7, 1996, she married bureaucrat Arun Kumar, a former commissioner of the Chief Vigilance Commission (CVC). Previously he served as an Indian Ordnance Factory Service Officer. In 2021, Arun followed in the footsteps of his wife and earned the title of Arun as Mukhiya of Gram Panchayat Singhwahini.
Ritu Jaiswal and husband Arun Kumar
They have two children, a son Rithwik Aryan and a daughter Avani. Both studied in a boarding school in Bangalore.
Ritu Jaiswal and her children
religion
She follows Hinduism.
Ritu Jaiswal prays to Goddess Durga
Signature/Autograph
Ritu Jaiswal’s signature
The turning point in Jaiswal’s life
In 1996, she married bureaucrat Arun Kumar and started living a lavish life in the upscale Khel Gaon area of Delhi. In 2013, after sixteen years of marriage, Ritu returned to her ancestral home in Narkatiya village in Sonbarsa block of Sitamarhi district in Bihar. Until then, she had lived in the city and had no idea of the plight of rural India. To her great dismay, she discovered that the village lacked basic amenities such as electricity and clean drinking water. In an interview, describing her experience in the village, she said,
As I walked along the river to the village, chapa in hand and feet stained with human excrement, all I could remember was the story of Prem Chand. My heart sank when I saw the people in these villages living in abject poverty and the children and pregnant women suffering from malnutrition. There are no young people in these villages, only old people, women, pregnant women, children and widows. “
So she decided to work on improving her village, starting with providing better education for girls. At that time, there was a girl in the village who had a bachelor’s degree in education. degree while working as a school teacher in Bokaro, Jharkhand. Ritu lured the girl with higher remuneration and got her educated in Sitamarhi, starting with a batch of 25 girls; 12 of them passed class 10 with distinction. Ritu started visiting the village frequently. She also carries a projector with her to educate villagers on topics ranging from open defecation to pesticide-free farming and domestic violence. Her inquiries revealed that an electrification plan for the village had been approved, and she mobilized the villagers and took them to the electricity board to implement the plan. In 2015, she successfully brought light bulbs and fans to more than 80 households. Pleased with the development she had brought to the village, she decided to return to city life in May 2016, but the villagers changed their minds and elected her. She is the Mukhiya of Gram Panchayat Singhwahini in Sita Mahi, Bihar.
Profession
Mukhiya as Gram Panchayat Raj Singwahini
In 2016, contested and won the election to the post of Mukhiya in the Gram Panchayat Raj Singwahini, securing 72% of the votes out of 6,500 voters, and became the head of the seven villages that make up the Singhwahini Panchayat – Narkatia, Khutha, Kaharwa, Baddi ·Singh Vahini, Jyoti Singh Vahini, Bhagwanpur and Yanki Nagar. The first challenge she faced was open defecation. She formed a women’s group to educate men and women on the health and social impacts of open defecation. With the help of DM Rajeev Roshan, 2,000 toilets were constructed in the village and the panchayat was declared ODF (Open Defecation Free) in October 2016.
Ritu Jaiswal spreads awareness about using toilets to eliminate open defecation
Other developments she brought to the village during her tenure include the installation of hand pumps in 12 wards of the panchayat, pucca roads and an Indian Council of Agricultural Research team working with farmers in the panchayat to produce better crops.
Ritu Jaiswal poses on the newly constructed road in Singhwahini
In order to improve the PDS (Public Distribution System), she collected the PDS cards of 14,000 villagers from the village committee, tabulated the details and found that this group of people required 8,853 units of rations. The investigation showed that among the five dealers in the village, two had more rations than their stores, and the other three had less rations than their stores. Thereafter, a presentation was given to the DM after which the Block Development Officer (BDO) was tasked with rearranging the ration distribution. Next, she noticed that some teachers from the nine schools in the panchayat were late for work. Instead of teaching the teachers herself, she decided to go to ‘Gandigiri’ and instructed the guardians of the children to greet the teachers with folded hands and said:
Kya Sir, ham apka doh ghante se intezar kar rahein hain. “(Sir, we have been waiting for you for two hours.)
The teachers were mortified and quickly mended their ways.
Ritu Jaiswal gets water from a hand pump in Singhwahini, which she successfully installed to ensure clean drinking water in the village
As a politician of the Bharatiya Janata Party (RJD)
In 2020, she joined the Janata Party (United Party) ahead of the Bihar Legislative Assembly elections but left when she realized that she would get a ticket from Palihar Assembly constituency in Sitamarhi district the party. Mukhiya of Gram Panchayat Raj Singwahini for the past four years. Thereafter, she started preparing to contest the elections as an independent candidate, but the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) offered her a ticket. She contested the 2020 Bihar Legislative Assembly elections on a party ticket of RJD from Palihar, but lost.
Ritu Jaiswal campaigns for Bihar Legislative Assembly elections 2020
She became the national spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party (RJD) in 2021. On April 25, 2023, she became the national president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (Women’s League).
Awards, Honors, Achievements
- She received the “Uchh Shikshit Adarsh Yuva Sarpanch (Mukhiya) Puraskaar 2016” award at the 7th Bharatiya Chhatra Sansad at Government College, Maharashtra Institute of Technology (MIT), Pune on January 18, 2017.
- She was awarded the Champion of Change (Award) 2018 by Venkaiah Naidu, Vice President of India, on December 26, 2018 at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi.
Ritu Jaiswal was awarded the ‘Champion of Change’ (Award) by Shri Venkaiah Naidu, Vice President of India, at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi on December 26, 2018
- On October 23, 2019, the Ministry of Panchayat Raj, Government of India conferred the National Panchayat Award for “Deen Dayal Upadhayay Panchayat Sashaktikaran Puraskar – 2019” to Gram Panchayat Singhwahini, New Delhi.
- The Rural Marketing Association of India honored her with the ‘Flame Leadership Award 2019’ on June 21, 2019 at the Taj Santacruz Hotel, Mumbai.
- In 2020, she received the “Times Women of Distinction Award” from the Times of India.
Ritu Jaiswal wins The Times Women of the Year Award (2020)
Facts/Trivia
- She revealed in an interview that she was known for her leadership traits and rebellious attitude during college. She revealed that she would distribute her mother’s saris to poor women without informing her.
- Ritu was one of the five Mukhiya members selected by the Panchayati Raj Ministry, Government of India, to represent Bihar in the Sarpanch and Panchayat Secretary Capacity Building Program at Siri Fort Auditorium, New Delhi.
- An eloquent public speaker, Ritu has spoken at various events including International LPG Conference Ranchi: Catalysts for Social Change-2 (2018), SEE Lecture at IIT Bombay (2018) ), TED (conference) in Patna (2018), and ‘Democracy Express’ (2019) during the Indian Institute of Democracy’s Hajj in Delhi.
- She has a pet dog named Jerry.
Ritu Jaiswal and her dog Jerry
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education