Dr Maya Kodnani is a 54-year-old gynaecologist who was a part of the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh in her younger days. She has been with the BJP for nearly 20 years.
Dr Maya Kodnani is a 54-year-old gynaecologist who was a part of the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh in her younger days. She has been with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for nearly 20 years and was general secretary of the state BJP in 1997-98, president of the Gujarat BJP women's cell in 1998-2000 and the first female city president of Ahmedabad, which she served as from 2000 to 2005.
Kodnani is said to have a good hold over the Sindhi community, to which she belongs, and is believed to be very close to senior BJP leader LK Advani.
Her father, Nanakram Meghani, belonged to Disa in Banaskantha district. He was a pioneer in establishing the Sangh's activities in Disa and other parts of the state. Her brother, Naran Meghani, senior general manager at Torrent Group, was also an influential member of the Sangh.
Dr Surendra Kodnani, her husband, is a family physician and the couple own a hospital in Naroda. After she became a minister, he took complete charge of the hospital. The couple have a son, who is a software engineer.
Kodnani began her political career in 1995, when she was elected as corporator of the Saijpur ward of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC). She became chairperson of the health committee in her very first term and was then elected chairperson of the hospitals committee in 1996.
Then, in 1997, she became the first female chairperson of the standing committee of the AMC. A year later, she was elected to the state assembly from the Naroda seat, winning by a lead of 75,000 votes. In 1999, she was made chairperson of the public accounts committee and a member of the assurance committee of the state assembly. In the next assembly elections, she again won from the Naroda seat, this time by a margin of 1.11 lakh votes, and was made a member of various committees of the assembly.
In the 2007 assembly elections, Kodnani won by a margin of 1,80,442 votes. Since then, she has been minister of state for women development and child welfare as well as higher education.
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