Najma Akbar Ali Heptulla (born 13 April 1940) is an Indian politician. She was the Chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia from 2017 to 2023, until Mufaddal Saifuddin was elected as new Chancellor on 14 March 2023. She was a six time member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament, between 1980 and 2016, and Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha for sixteen years when she was a member of Congress. Later she was nominated vice-president of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2012, and was a minister from 2014-2016 as a member of BJP in Narendra Modi's first government. From 2016 to 2021, she served as the 16th Governor of Manipur.
She married Akbar Ali Akhtar Heptulla in 1966, and has three daughters.[7] Her husband, Akbar Ali Akhtar Heptulla, a manpower consultant, was instrumental in the establishment of the Patriot newspaper in the 1960s. He died on 4 September 2007, in New Delhi at the age of 75.[9]
Career
She steadily climbed up in the Indian National Congress party, heading several divisions of the party's grassroots organisations. She was the General Secretary of Congress during 1986 with the additional responsibility of youth activities of the All India Congress Committee and the NSUI.[10] Since 1980, she was a member of the Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra for four terms, elected in 1980, 1986, 1992, 1998 as Congress candidate.[11] Najma was the Deputy Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha from January 1985 to January 1986 and from 1988 to July 2004.[12]
Heptulla joined Bharatiya Janata Party in 2004.[6][13][14] Media sources reported that she left the Congress apparently due to a strain in relationship with Congress president Sonia Gandhi.[15] Later she alleged that she was personally humiliated by Sonia Gandhi.[16] She declared that she was leaving the party due to the problems with party leadership.[16] In 2007, BJP-led NDA fielded her as a candidate in the elections for the Vice-President of India, which was won by Hamid Ansari.[17]
She was a member of Rajya Sabha, representing Rajasthan for BJP from July 2004 to July 2010. She was nominated by the BJP for the Rajya Sabha in 2012 from Madhya Pradesh, and assumed her office on 24 April 2012 upon election.[18] Under Nitin Gadkari as BJP President, she became one of the 13 vice-presidents of the BJP in 2010, where later when Rajnath Singh took over, she was made a member of the party's national executive.[19] Heptulla served as the Minister of Minority Affairs in Prime minister Narendra Modi's cabinet from 26 May 2014[19] to 12 July 2016.[20] She said that minorities needed a level playing field in Indian society, but reservation is not the solution as it kills the spirit of competition.[21]
She resigned from her positions as a minister and a member of Rajya Sabha in 2016 when she was nominated Governor of Manipur.
Heptulla was nominated to head the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, ICCR. She also presided over the women parliamentarians' group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in 1993 and became founder president of the parliamentarians' forum for human development the same year. She was also elected President of Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), a Geneva-based international organisation at Council's 165th session in Berlin in 1999. She held the post from 16 October 1999 to 27 September 2002. Subsequently, in 2002, at Council's 171st session, she was chosen the Honorary President of the IPU Council. Heptulla was nominated by the United Nations Development Programme as its human development ambassador. Heptulla led a delegation to the UN Commission on Status of Women in 1997.[22]
Heptulla has authored book on AIDS titled "AIDS: Approaches to Prevention". She has also written on human social security, sustainable development, environment, reforms for women and on ties between India and west Asia.
Heptulla faced charges of having morphed a 1958 photograph to show her along with Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in a publication of the Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR). The controversial photograph was published in an ICCR publication titled 'Journey of a legend', on the life of Maulana Azad, a noted scholar and the country's first education minister. He was also the first chairperson of the ICCR and the publication came out when the council was headed by Heptulla. The photograph came with an introduction and showed a young Heptulla with the Maulana. The caption read "Najma Heptulla with Maulana Azad after her graduation". This gave the game away as official inquiries later revealed Heptulla had graduated in May 1958, whereas the Maulana had died on 22 February 1958. The publication was later withdrawn by the ICCR and its revised version is released but without the controversial photograph. Delhi High court had directed the CBI to investigate the case on a public interest litigation filed by ICCR Employees Association president.[23]
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