[citation needed] She was appointed as the Chairperson of National Drought Relief Committee constituted by the Congress during 1967 famine in region of Bihar.

[6] After working as a diplomat for a decade, Kumar quit the Indian Foreign Services in 1985 and decided to enter politics after being encouraged by her father Jagjivan Ram and later Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi .

[7] Kumar entered electoral politics in 1985, when she received an Indian National Congress' nomination for the Lok Sabha from the Bijnor constituency bye-poll in Uttar Pradesh.

She defeated, as a newcomer, two veteran dalit leaders including Ram Vilas Paswan of the Janata Dal and Mayawati of the Bahujan Samajwadi Party.

She lost her seat to the candidate from the Bhartiya Janata Party in 1999 election, but was able re-elected with a significant majority from her father's former constituency of Sasaram in Bihar in 2004 and 2009.

[10] Following the Congress party's win in the 2004 Indian general elections, Kumar served in the United Progressive Alliance's Government as the Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment from 2004 to 2009, under the premiership of Manmohan Singh.

[11] In 2009, the United Progressive Alliance returned to power after an improved performance in the general election and Kumar was, on 22 May 2009, briefly inducted as member of the centre's cabinet as the Minister for Water Resources.

[14] Although she received support from most of the major opposition parties for her election to the office, she went on to lose to the National Democratic Alliance nominee Ram Nath Kovind.