Balaji Tangali Lalitha Naik (born 4 April 1945) is an Indian social activist, politician, writer, film actress who was the minister of Kannada, Culture, and Department of Women & Child Welfare of Karnataka.
[4] After her marriage, Naik, started writing radio plays about the trials and tribulations of middle class life for the local Akashavani station.
Encouraged by the popularity she started writing and contributing poems, short stories and articles for prominent Kannada periodicals such as Sudha, Prajavani and Taranga.
Her popularity as a writer and journalist led her to being nominated as Member of the Karnataka Legislative Council (MLC) by the then Chief Minister Ramakrishna Hegde.
[3] While serving as MLC (1986–1992) Naik joined the Janata Dal, inspired by the socialist ideals of Shantaveri Gopala Gowda and Jayaprakash Narayan.
[6] In 1994 she was elected MLA from Devadurga constituency, Raichur on a Janata Dal ticket, and was made Minister for Kannada, Culture, and Department of Women & Child Welfare in the J. H. Patel cabinet.
[7] Though subsequent investigations revealed the allegations to be baseless, she was forced to step down at that time and Vimalabai Deshmukh succeeded her as Minister for Women and Child Welfare, Karnataka.
[11] In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections she contested from the Gulbarga constituency on an Aam Aadmi Party ticket and lost to Mallikarjun Kharge.