 "Najma Heptullah")
Minority Affairs
Date & year of birth: April 13, 1940
Constituency: Rajya Sabha member from Madhya Pradesh
Whether represented the constituency before: No
Whether held ministerial charge earlier: No
Heptulla is the grand-niece of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and related to actor Aamir Khan. She was first elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1980; she was deputy chairperson of the Rajya Sabha from 1989 to 2004.
Heptulla was at the fore of the Congress’s women and minority leadership in the late ’80s and ’90s. She switched to the BJP in 2004, complaining she was personally humiliated by Congress president Sonia Gandhi. In a career spanning about four decades, Heptulla has been part of several parliamentary committees; this will be her first stint as minister.
She is the only minister from the Muslim community in the Modi Cabinet. Heptulla, along with Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, is one of the two Muslim faces of the BJP in the Rajya Sabha. In 2013, she said it was “a historical fact that during BJP rule in Gujarat, only one communal riot took place and since then, no such incident has taken place there. But in the same Godhra, during the rule of erstwhile Congress regime, 400 riots had occurred.”
Date & year of birth: April 13, 1940
Constituency: Rajya Sabha member from Madhya Pradesh
Whether represented the constituency before: No
Whether held ministerial charge earlier: No
Heptulla is the grand-niece of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and related to actor Aamir Khan. She was first elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1980; she was deputy chairperson of the Rajya Sabha from 1989 to 2004.
Heptulla was at the fore of the Congress’s women and minority leadership in the late ’80s and ’90s. She switched to the BJP in 2004, complaining she was personally humiliated by Congress president Sonia Gandhi. In a career spanning about four decades, Heptulla has been part of several parliamentary committees; this will be her first stint as minister.
She is the only minister from the Muslim community in the Modi Cabinet. Heptulla, along with Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, is one of the two Muslim faces of the BJP in the Rajya Sabha. In 2013, she said it was “a historical fact that during BJP rule in Gujarat, only one communal riot took place and since then, no such incident has taken place there. But in the same Godhra, during the rule of erstwhile Congress regime, 400 riots had occurred.”
