Afrin Ali née Aparupa Poddar (born 8 January 1986) is an Indian politician and a

member of parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

to the 16th 17th Lok Sabha from

Arambagh (Lok Sabha constituency) Arambagh Lok Sabha constituency is one of the 543 parliamentary constituencies in India. The constituency centres on Arambagh in West Bengal. While six assembly segments of No. 29 Arambagh Lok Sabha constituency are in Hooghly district one segme ...

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...

. She won the 2014 & 2019 Indian general election as an

All India Trinamool Congress The All India Trinamool Congress (English: All India Grassroots Congress; AITC), colloquially the Trinamool Congress ( TMC) is an Indian political party which is predominantly active in West Bengal. The party is led by Mamata Banerjee, the cur ...

candidate.

Controversies

The allegations relating to the first controversy, regarding financial corruption, were confirmed to be true on 05-Oct-2017, when she confessed that she had taken a bribe from Narada News boss Mathew Samuel as part of

Narada sting operation The Narada sting operation was a sting operation carried out by Mathew Samuel targeting high-ranking officials and politicians of the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC). It showed several politicians and a high-ranked police officer accepting ...

. The allegations regarding the second controversy are regarding her religion. Born into a

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

family and named Aparupa Poddar at birth, she married a Muslim man. She then stood for election from a parliamentary constituency which is reserved for those belonging to the

scheduled caste The Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) are officially designated groups of people and among the most disadvantaged socio-economic groups in India. The terms are recognized in the Constitution of India and the groups are designa ...

s. The

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...

lodged a complaint with the Election Commission seeking cancellation of her candidature on the plea that she had converted to Islam and hence she did not belong to a scheduled caste. Aparupa Poddar then claimed, that she had changed her name but not her religion.

References

External links

Living people 1986 births Lok Sabha members from West Bengal Women in West Bengal politics Women members of the Lok Sabha 21st-century Indian Muslims Trinamool Congress politicians from West Bengal People from Hooghly district Hooghly Mohsin College alumni India MPs 2014–2019 India MPs 2019–present 21st-century Indian politicians 21st-century Indian women politicians {{WestBengal-politician-stub