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Sofia Firdous has made history by becoming the first-ever Muslim woman legislator elected to the Odisha Assembly. Here are five key facts about her:
- Political Lineage: Sofia Firdous, 32, hails from a political family. She is the daughter of senior Congress leader Mohammed Moquim, whom she replaced in the 2024 Odisha Assembly elections after he was disqualified due to a corruption conviction. Firdous contested and won from the Barabati-Cuttack seat, defeating BJP’s Purna Chandra Mahapatra by a margin of 8,001 votes.
- Educational Background: Firdous holds a Civil Engineering degree from Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology. She furthered her education by completing an Executive General Management Program from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB) in 2022.
- Professional Leadership: In 2023, Firdous was elected as the president of the Bhubaneswar chapter of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India (CREDAI). She also serves as the East Zone Coordinator for the CREDAI women’s wing, highlighting her influential role in the real estate sector.
- Community Involvement: She is the Co-Chair of the Bhubaneswar Chapter of the CII – Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) and a core member of INWEC India. Sofia Firdous is married to entrepreneur Sheikh Meraj Ul Haque, adding to her dynamic professional and personal life.
- Historical Parallel: Sofia Firdous follows in the footsteps of Nandini Satpathy, Odisha’s first woman chief minister, who also represented the Barabati-Cuttack constituency in 1972, creating a historical parallel in terms of female political leadership in the region.
2024 Election Context
In the 2024 Odisha Assembly elections, the BJP secured a majority by winning 78 of the 147 seats, ending Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and Biju Janata Dal’s (BJD) 24-year rule in the state. In the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won 20 of the 21 seats in Odisha, an increase from their 12-seat tally in 2019, while the Congress secured the remaining seat, and the BJD did not win any seats.
Prasanta Patnaik