Sucheta Kriplani was a great freedom fighter of India. She was born as Sucheta Mazumdar in the year 1908. She was the first woman to be elected as the Chief Minister of a state in India. She made an immense contribution in fighting for the freedom of India.
Sucheta Kriplani was born to a Bengali family in the Ambala city. Her father S.N. Majumdar was a nationalist of India. Sucheta took education from Indraprastha College and St.Stephen’s College in Delhi. After completing her studies, she took the job of a lecturer in the Banaras Hindu University. In the year 1936, she tied her wedding knots with a socialist Acharya Kriplani and joined the Indian National Congress.
She came into the Indian historical scene during the Quit India Movement. Sucheta worked in close association with Mahatma Gandhi during the time of partition riots. She went along with him to Noakhali in 1946. She was one amongst the handful of women who got elected to the Constituent Assembly. She became a part of the subcommittee that was handed over the task of laying down the charter for the constitution of India. On the 15th August, 1947, she sang the national song Vande Mataram in the Independence Session of the Constituent Assembly.
Elected to the Lok Sabha in 1952 and 1957, she was inducted as the Minister for Village and Small-Scale Industries in 1950. She again won an assembly seat from Kanpur in the 1962 general elections.
When U.P Chief Minister C.B. Gupta resigned, Sucheta was appointed for the post. She administered Uttar Pradesh with a visible sense of fairness and transparency. The first-ever strike by the state employees which continued for 62 days took place during her regime. She relented only when the employees leaders agreed for compromise. Like a firm administrator, she refused their demand for pay hike. Sucheta, wife of socialist leader J.B. Kriplani, died in 1974.
