Senior Supreme Court advocate Menaka Guruswamy, who argued the landmark case challenging Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, is likely to become India’s first self-declared LGBTQ Member of Parliament. She has been nominated to the Rajya Sabha by the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) alongside Union Minister-turned-TMC leader Babul Supriyo, former West Bengal DGP Rajeev Kumar and actor Koel Mallick.
Menaka is the daughter of Mohan Guruswamy, a former BJP strategist, scholar and vocal critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Earlier, he served as special adviser to the erstwhile Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha.
The nomination coincided with another professional milestone for Menaka: she secured relief for the Aam Aadmi Party leaders in the liquor policy case before a CBI Special Court. This high-profile case involved several AAP leaders, including Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia. In announcing the development on social media, Mohan Guruswamy pointed out the CBI terming politicians and businessmen involved in the case as the 'Southern Group', and said that the court condemned this labelling.
Menaka, who openly identifies as LGBTQ+, had played a central role in the historic decriminalisation of homosexuality case before the Supreme Court. She shares her life with senior advocate Arundhati Katju, her co-counsel in the case. Menaka completed her LLM from Harvard Law School and later earned a DPhil from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, while Arundhati Katju pursued her LLM at Columbia University as a Human Rights Fellow and James Kent Scholar.
West Bengal has five Rajya Sabha seats falling vacant, with elections scheduled for March 16. Given its comfortable majority in the Assembly, the TMC is positioned to secure four seats unopposed, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is set to contest the remaining seat.
Menaka’s nomination reflects the TMC’s established practice of elevating journalists, bureaucrats, and public intellectuals to the Upper House. The presence of figures such as former journalist Derek O'Brien, ex-bureaucrat Jawhar Sircar, journalist-author Sagarika Ghose, and activist-journalist Saket Gokhale illustrates a broader strategy. This approach aims to strengthen parliamentary articulation, expand national visibility, and project the TMC as an intellectually engaged opposition force beyond West Bengal.
Congratulating its nominees, TMC expressed confidence that the new MPs would continue to uphold the party’s legacy of resilience and its commitment to safeguarding the rights and dignity of every Indian.