Chitra Sarwara
Born (1975-03-18) 18 March 1975 (age 49)
Occupation(s)Politician, Social Activist, Designer
Political partyIndian National Congress
Spouse
(m. 2005)
[1]
Children2
ParentNirmal Singh[2]
Naib Kaur
RelativesUdayVir Singh(Brother)
Chetak Singh(Brother)
Noor Sarwara(Sister)
Chitrangada Singh
(sister-in-law)
Websitewww.chitrasarwara.com

Chitra Sarwara (Hindi: चित्रा सरवारा; born 18 March 1975) is daughter of Nirmal Singh Mohra and a second generation politician. She was a former member of Aam Aadmi Party led by Arvind Kejriwal[3] and was appointed as State Vice President, Haryana since April 2023. She joined Indian National Congress in January 2024.

Prior to this, Chitra held the post of In charge North Zone, Aam Aadmi Party as Haryana, for nearly 1 year from June 2022 to March 2023. In her tenure AAP Haryana contested and won Zila Parishad Chairman, Zila Parishad members and an overall vote percentage of 13.89% in north zone alone.[4]

Before this, she was National General Secretary Incharge Organization & Treasurer for Haryana Democratic Front-HDF, an independent registered political body in Haryana.

Erstwhile, as an Indian National Congress member, she has served as National General Secretary and Social Media Incharge for All India Mahila Congress.[5][6] She has also served as Senior Vice President Haryana Pradesh Mahila Congress Committee.[7]

She was elected as a Municipal Corporator of Ambala Municipal Corporation, Haryana, on 13 June 2013.

In October 2019, She contested Vidhan Sabha from Ambala Cantt, Haryana, as an independent candidate and came second garnering more than 44.5 thousand votes.

Personal life

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Her grandfather Hazara Singh Sarwara was an English and Urdu teacher and her grandmother Chinto Devi was a homemaker.

Parents

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Chitra Sarwara was born on 18 March 1975, at Ambala Cantt, Haryana, to Nirmal Singh[2]
and Naib Kaur. Her father is a politician who started his career in the 1970s with Indian Youth Congress, Haryana. He has been a member of Haryana Legislative Assembly for four terms from Naggal Constituency. Chitra Sarwara has three siblings- two younger brothers, UdayVir Singh and Chetak Singh and also a younger sister Noor Sarwara.

Spouse

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Digvijay Singh Chahal,[1] an international professional golfer and Son of Col. Niranjan Singh.

Children

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The couple has two children, a daughter and a son. Their son was born with a rare and fatal disorder, biliary atresia that would affect and damage his liver completely. In December 2016, when he was merely 8 months old and in need of a liver transplant, Chitra donated her liver (part of it) to her child.[7]

Education

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She did her early schooling at Convent of Jesus and Mary, Ambala[8] and Bhartiya Public School[9] in Ambala Cantt. She later joined and completed her schooling from Motilal Nehru School of Sports,[10] Rai, Sonipat in 1994.

She is an international Volleyball player, having won many State and National titles as a part of the Rai team. She represented Haryana in the National School Volleyball Championship in Purnia, Bihar in 1993 which was won by the Haryana team. She has attended India Camp in Bangalore and represented India against Sri Lanka in 1994 in volleyball matches. She graduated from National Institute of Design,[11] Ahmedabad as an industrial designer specializing in furniture design.

Career

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She worked with Tesseract Design [12] in Bangalore and then went on to Idiom Design and Consulting[13] Bangalore. In Delhi, she worked as an independent design consultant and eventually as Design Head of the Delhi office of Idiom Design and Consulting.

While with Idiom Design and Consulting, she was Design Manager for developing the 2010 Commonwealth Games Image and Look program which involved developing the games branding from Logo to application of Image and Look program across city and collaterals.

Political career

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Social front

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The Light Within

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The Light Within (TLW): Launched as an informal professional and social networking platform for women in Ambala. Idea was to get women professionals, achievers and contributors from diverse fields to work together, pool efforts and do something to make a difference to improve our lives and society.

Under TLW, organised preparatory workshops in all Ambala Government Senior Secondary Schools to help students ready for exams with tips and tricks on stress management, memory enhancement and how to attempt exams under this banner.

Organised workshops on menstrual hygiene for distributing free sanitary napkins amongst girl children from financially challenged backgrounds in collaboration with NGOs, Gynecologists and social workers.

Later on TLW Transformed into Nari Shakti with wider base and more widespread activities.

iHELP - Welfare Information Helpline

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iHELP - Welfare Information Helpline: In 2013, collaborating with enthusiastic youngsters and Team Suraksha team. It's a toll free social welfare Information helpline, where anyone can call and receive details of various Social Welfare Schemes provided by Government of Haryana and correct information on Forms, due procedures, offices involved.

iHelp camps

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iHELP grew from a mere helpline to iHELP camps where teams led by Chitra would visit an area, complete with free forms of schemes, printers for scanning documents and stamps for sign and have mass form verification/ filling camps for all those who needed to apply for any government scheme.

iHELP still continues as a toll-free call service.

Social activities

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Positions held

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Agitations

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References

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  1. ^ a b "CG Open: Digvijay eyes Asian Tour card". timesofindia. 4 December 2015.
  2. ^ a b "Lok Sabha Elections 2019: In Haryana, women lead the campaign charge". hindustantimes. 29 April 2019.
  3. ^ "Former Congress leaders Nirmal, daughter Chitra to join AAP on April 7". Hindusthan Times. 7 April 2022.
  4. ^ a b "AAP made Chitra Sarwara North Haryana Incharge". Danik Bhaskar. 23 June 2022.
  5. ^ a b "Chitra Sarwara, Shamina Shafiq appointed Mahila Congress General Secretaries". Business Standard. 31 August 2018.
  6. ^ a b "Rahul appoints two more general secretaries of Mahila Congress". timesofindia. 31 August 2018.
  7. ^ a b c "देखिए एक मां, जिसने लीवर देकर बचाई बेटे की जान" [Mother's Day, Unbelievable Story Of Haryana Mahila Congress Speaker Chitra Sarwara]. amarujala. 15 May 2017.
  8. ^ "Convent of Jesus & Mary, Ambala". 23 March 2019.
  9. ^ "Bhartiya Public S CFchool, Ambala". 31 March 2019.
  10. ^ "Motilal Nehru School of Sports". 23 March 2015.
  11. ^ "National Institute of Design". 11 March 2013. Archived from the original on 16 May 2021. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
  12. ^ "tesseract designs". 11 July 2005. Archived from the original on 22 July 2019. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
  13. ^ "Idiom Design and Consulting". 21 May 2007.
  14. ^ "Mahila Congress launches online campaign to ensure Women's Reservation Bill by 2019". 31 January 2018.
  15. ^ a b "Chitra Sarwara appointed Secretary of All India Mahila Congress". danik bhaskar. 8 March 2018.
  16. ^ "Rahul Gandhi launched Logo and Flag designed by Chitra". danik bhaskar. 7 August 2018.
  17. ^ "congress factions come together for state wide campaign launched by women's congress". times of india. 1 October 2018.
  18. ^ "HDF made Chitra Sarwara National Treasurer". Molics. 6 March 2020.
  19. ^ "HDF made Chitra Sarwara National General Secretary and Office Incharge". Molics. 6 March 2020.
  20. ^ "AAP made Chitra Sarwara State Vice President Haryana". Danik Bhaskar. 14 March 2023.
  21. ^ "family seeks of vaishnavis killer hanged". danik bhaskar. Retrieved 10 December 2017.
  22. ^ "fast peace harmony". 19 February 2018. Archived from the original on 22 July 2019. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  23. ^ "protest outside parliament womenfor33". 8 March 2018. Archived from the original on 22 July 2019. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  24. ^ "jan aakrosh rally". 29 April 2018. Archived from the original on 22 July 2019. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  25. ^ "save democracy day". 8 May 2018. Archived from the original on 22 July 2019. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  26. ^ "protest against Corporation breach". danik bhaskar. Retrieved 16 May 2018.
  27. ^ "protest against Corporation breach". danik bhaskar. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
  28. ^ "vishwasghat diwas". 26 May 2018. Archived from the original on 22 July 2019. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  29. ^ "mahila aakrosh". 24 August 2018. Archived from the original on 22 July 2019. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  30. ^ "bharat bandh". 21 September 2018. Archived from the original on 22 July 2019. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  31. ^ "kala diwas". 13 March 2018. Archived from the original on 22 July 2019. Retrieved 3 July 2020.