Meenakshi Lekhi

On 20 May 2020, during the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, Lekhi, along with Rahul Kaswan, attended the swearing in ceremony of Tsai Ing-wen as president of Taiwan and praised Taiwan as a “Democratic Country”.

Meenakshi Lekhi is an Indian politician and a member of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). She is a Member of Parliament from New Delhi Parliamentary constituency in the 16th and 17th Lok Sabha . She is the national spokesperson of Bharatiya Janata Party and a Supreme Court of India lawyer. She won the high-profile New Delhi parliamentary constituency as a BJP candidate in the 2014 elections and was re-elected in 2019. In July 2016, she was appointed as chairperson of the Committee on Privileges of the Lok Sabha in Parliament. On 26 July 2019, Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla appointed Lekhi as a chairperson of parliamentary committee on Public Undertakings and is continuing since then in that position.

On 12 April 2019 Meenakshi Lekhi filed a criminal contempt case in the Supreme Court against the Congress Party President Rahul Gandhi for attributing his personal remark to the Supreme Court and creating prejudice in the minds of electorate by saying that the Supreme Court had accepted his (Rahul Gandhi's) contention that there was a scam in the rafale deal. Lekhi said that this amounted to misuse of the Supreme Court's order and hence constituted a clear contempt of court In a separate verdict dated 10 April 2019 the Supreme Court had agreed to admit three secret stolen documents of the Ministry of Defence related to the Rafale deal file as admissible piece of evidence in the court, dismissing the government's contention that as per the Official Secrecy Act, such documents can't be admitted. However, Rahul Gandhi, while talking on the judgment with the media, had imputed his own words to the SC saying that the latter had agreed with his assertion that 'chowkidar chor hai' (the chowkidar is a thief) - a reference to PM Narendra Modi, who calls himself 'chowkidar' meaning 'the caretaker' or the guard.

She has been an active participant in the parliamentary processes. In the 16th Lok Sabha, Lekhi has participated in 125 debates (national average being 67.1), asked 435 questions (national average being 292) and introduced 20 private member bills (national average being 2.3) in the Lok Sabha (as updated till final Budget Session, 2019). Her overall attendance in parliament till budget session, 2019 has been 95% against the national average of 80%.

Meenakshi Lekhi was reelected in the 2019 general elections against congress party candidate Ajay Maken in New Delhi constituency of New Delhi (Lok Sabha constituency). Lekhi got nearly 54 per cent of votes against only 26 per cent of votes of nearest candidate Ajay Maken .

On 26 July 2019, Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla appointed Lekhi as a chairperson of parliamentary committee on Public Undertakings.

Besides writing articles in journals, periodicals and newspapers on socio-political issues, she participates in various television shows on matters on national and international importance. Lekhi writes 'Forthwrite', a fortnightly column in The Week magazine. With her equal command over English and Hindi, she comes as a good debater in the parliament where she has participated in numerous debates on matters of national importance in the Lok Sabha, such as debates on "intolerance" in India and the Triple Talaq Bill. She has also distinguished herself as an active participant in the various parliamentary processes and was awarded with the "Best Debut Women Parliamentarian" award by Lokmat in 2017.

In July 2017, Lekhi was honoured with the Lokmat Parliamentary Award as "Best Debut Woman Parliamentarian".

During a discussion on the Triple Talaq bill in Parliament in December 2017, Meenakshi Lekhi demanded stern punishment for the clerics and religious leaders who support and facilitate the process of instant triple talaq, known as talaq-i-biddat. Further, she had said: "I want to tell Muslim women, when you have a brother like Narendra Modi, you don't need to be afraid. We stand with you in this fight."

In April 2015, she was part of a national environment awareness program, hosted by Women Can, a non-government organisation. She awarded 500 tree saplings to awarded students. The students had been a part of a quiz contest conducted across India through the initiative of Women Can, with the help of student volunteer Apoorv Jha, who published a quiz book and designed the quizzes.

On 28 August 2015, Ministry of Urban Development & NDMC approved the renaming of New Delhi's Aurangzeb Road as Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Road. Lekhi, as member of the NDMC as well as the MP of the New Delhi constituency where the road is situated, had played important role in this decision. As a member of NDMC, she also got the name of Dalhousie Road, a road near the Secretariat Building, New Delhi, changed to Dara Shikoh Road Earlier, she had been instrumental in changing the name of Race Course Road, the Delhi road adjacent to the Indian Prime Minister's residence, to Lok Kalyan Marg thus giving a new address to the PM's residence, from "7, RCR" to "7, LKM".

Meenakshi Lekhi contested in elections for the New Delhi parliamentary constituency in the General Elections 2014 and defeated incumbent Ajay Maken by a margin of 270,000 votes. In her capacity as Member of Parliament from the New Delhi constituency, Lekhi is currently the member of New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC). She is the ex-officio Chairperson of the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians (India chapter) and has been nominated as a member of the Press Council of India by the Lok Sabha Speaker. She was appointed the Chairperson of the Committee on Privileges of the Lok Sabha in July 2016 and is also currently an active member of the Standing Committee on Urban Development, Committee on Personnel, Law & Justice, Consultative Committee of Commerce and Committee of Housing.

After completing her BSc in Botany from Hindu College, Delhi, Meenakshi Lekhi joined the Campus Law Centre-I, Delhi University for her LLB. She enrolled with the Bar Council of Delhi in 1990, and started practising at the Supreme Court of India, Delhi High Court, and several other courts, tribunals and forums in different parts of the country.