Meira Kumar

Kumar joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1973 and was the ambassador to Embassy of India in Madrid, Spain, a position that she held from 1976 to 1977. During her time in Madrid, Kumar graduated with an advanced diploma in Spanish.[5] Following that, Kumar was appointed as the High Commission of India to the United Kingdom in 1977. She was stationed in the India House, London for two years until the end of her term in 1979.[5] After working as an ambassador for a little over a decade, Kumar quit the Indian Foreign Services in 1985 and decided to enter politics after being encouraged by her father and the then Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi.[6]

Kumar entered electoral politics in 1985, when she received an Indian National Congress' nomination for the Lok Sabha from the Bijnor constituency bye-poll in Uttar Pradesh. She defeated, as a newcomer, two veteran dalit leaders including Ram Vilas Paswan of the Janata Dal and Mayawati of the Bahujan Samajwadi Party.[7][8] Following her election to the Lok Sabha, Kumar was appointed as member of the Ministry of External Affairs' Consultative Committee in 1986.[5]

Meera Kumar lost elections for 9th Lok Sabha (1989) and 10th Lok Sabha from Sasaram, but went on to win elections for the 11th (in 1996) and the 12th Lok Sabhas from Karol Bagh in Delhi. She lost her seat to the candidate from the Bhartiya Janata Party in 1999 election, but was able re-elected with a significant majority from her father's former constituency of Sasaram in Bihar in 2004 and 2009. In the 2014 general election and in 2019, Kumar contested from Sasaram and lost both times to her nemesis Chhedi Paswan who has defeated her in Sasaram four times.[9]

Kumar meeting Burmese leader Aung Suu Kyi in 2013.

Following the Congress party's win in the 2004 Indian general elections, Kumar served in the United Progressive Alliance's Government as the Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment from 2004 to 2009, under the premiership of Manmohan Singh.

In 2009, the United Progressive Alliance returned to power after an improved performance in the general election and Kumar was, on May 22, 2009, briefly inducted as member of the centre's cabinet as the Minister for Water Resources.

However, she was later nominated for the position of the Speaker of Lok Sabha and she submitted her resignation three days after assuming ministerial office. Kumar was then elected as the first ever woman speaker of Lok Sabha and remained in office from 2009 to 2014.[10][11]

Kumar secured the United Progressive Alliance's nomination for the 2017 Indian presidential election, becoming just the third woman to be nominated for president of India by a major political bloc,[lower-alpha 1] after Pratibha Patil.[12] Although she received support from most of the major opposition parties for her election to the office, she went on to lose to the National Democratic Alliance nominee Ram Nath Kovind.[13]

Kovind received a total of 2,930 votes (which included both Members of Parliament and Members of the Legislative Assemblies) amounting to electoral college votes of 702,044.[13] He defeated Kumar, who received a total of 1,844 votes amounting to 367,314 votes in terms of electoral college. Kumar's total of 367,314 votes remain the highest number polled by any losing candidate in the history of presidential elections in India.[14][15]