Who is Dr Archana Gupta, second woman to lead Haryana BJP in 43 years

Gurugram: Forty-three years after Kamla Verma became the first woman to head the Haryana unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the party last month handed the post to another medical practitioner. Dr Archana Gupta, a radiologist from Panipat, was appointed Haryana BJP president on 3 June, taking over from Mohan Lal Badoli.

Until her appointment, Gupta was the party’s state general secretary in Haryana, a post she has held since January 2024. Her appointment also gives the BJP a rare distinction at the national level. Haryana is now one of only two states where the party currently has a woman heading its state unit, the other being Manipur, where Adhikarimayum Sharda Devi has been BJP president since 2021 and was later elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha.

Gupta couldn’t be contacted for her comments on her appointment and her priorities.

A senior party functionary told ThePrint that she has provided much more active on the field during the past one month than the party’s central leadership would have expected.
The choice of a woman to head the party in a state long associated with patriarchal politics has not gone unnoticed within the BJP’s own ranks.

O.P. Dhankar, national secretary of the BJP and a former state president himself, called it a rare coincidence that Haryana’s first BJP state president was also a woman—Kamla Verma, who held the post from 1980 to 1983.

“We again have a woman leading the party in the state,” Dhankar told The Print, linking Gupta’s elevation to the party’s push earlier this year to fast-track the women’s reservation law. He noted that in April, the BJP government at the Centre brought amendments seeking to operationalise the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam—which reserves 33 percent of seats for women in Parliament and state assemblies—ahead of the 2029 general election, and the party ran a nationwide campaign around it.

“Though the amendment Bill could not be passed because of the anti-women attitude of opposition parties, particularly the Congress, the BJP’s intentions are clear that it wants to empower women. In the backdrop of all this, Haryana getting a woman as its state president is being lauded, particularly because the state is known for its patriarchal outlook,” Dhankar said.

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From Samalkha to top job in Haryana

Gupta was born in Samalkha in Panipat district. Her grandfather, Lala Sooraj Bhan of Atta village, was a freedom fighter, a detail the party has highlighted. She completed her degree in medicine and a master’s in radiology from Pandit Bhagwat Dayal Sharma Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Rohtak, and is a gold medallist in her subject. She runs a diagnostic centre in Panipat with her husband, Dr Anil Gupta, an eye specialist.

Before entering active politics, Gupta was associated with the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), where she ran an initiative called the Indian Health Line, launched by Praveen Togadia, a doctor himself. Her shift towards full-time party work began after the BJP formed the government in 2014, and picked up pace in August 2020, when she was made the Panipat district president of the BJP’s Mahila Morcha. She was elevated to state general secretary of the party in January 2024, and has now moved to the top post in the state.

Gupta’s appointment brings back a comparison the BJP itself was quick to draw: Kamla Verma, who led the Haryana BJP from 1980 to 1983, was also a doctor. Between Verma and Gupta, the post has gone only to men. Party leaders in Chandigarh said the coincidence of two women doctors heading the organisation over four decades apart was being cited within the party as evidence of continuity in its outreach to professionals and women.

In her first remarks to party workers, as also during her tour to various districts, Gupta signalled where her focus would lie. She asked cadres to begin preparing for the 2027 panchayat elections without delay, telling them the party’s target was to build a strong organisation at every level, “from MP to panch”, and that this work had to start at the booth level now, not closer to the elections.

She also announced that the BJP would soon launch a new portal aimed at drawing in people interested in social service work but not yet formally attached to the party.

According to Gupta, the portal will let such volunteers register and gradually become part of the BJP’s organisational activities, with a particular focus on reaching young people, women, doctors and other professionals who are socially active but currently outside any party structure. She described the booth-level worker as the real strength behind the BJP’s electoral wins, arguing that legislators and governments are ultimately built by the ground-level effort of party workers.

(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)

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