Tariq Anwar (born 16 January 1951) is an Indian politician as member of the

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British E ...

(INC). He served as the Minister of State of Agriculture and Food Processing Industries between 2012 and 2014. Anwar has been a member of the

Indian Parliament The Parliament of India ( IAST: ) is the supreme legislative body of the Republic of India. It is a bicameral legislature composed of the president of India and two houses: the Rajya Sabha (Council of States) and the Lok Sabha (House of the ...

for more than three decades – elected five times to the

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-p ...

, the lower house, from Katihar, and two times to the

Rajya Sabha The Rajya Sabha, constitutionally the Council of States, is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. , it has a maximum membership of 245, of which 233 are elected by the legislatures of the states and union territories using si ...

, the upper house, from Maharashtra. He quit the INC over a presidency dispute of the party in 1999 and formed the

Nationalist Congress Party The Nationalist Congress Party ( NCP) is one of the nine national parties in India. The party generally supports Indian nationalism and Gandhian secularism. It is the largest opposition party in Maharashtra and is also a significant party ...

along with

Sharad Pawar Sharad Govindrao Pawar (Marathi pronunciation: �əɾəd̪ pəʋaːɾ born 12 December 1940) is an Indian politician. He has served as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra on four occasions. He has held the posts of Minister of Defence and Mini ...

and P. A. Sangma, before resigning 19 years after, and re-joining the INC in 2018. Anwar has been appointed both general secretary in charge of poll-bound Kerala and a member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC).

Career

Anwar joined the

in 1972. His political career began a student leader. He contested his first Lok Sabha election from Katihar on a Congress ticket in 1977 which he lost before winning three year later. He has been the national president of

Indian Youth Congress The Indian Youth Congress is the youth wing of the Indian National Congress party. The Indian Youth Congress was a department of the Indian National Congress from the period just after the Partition of India in 1947 until the late 1960s. While ...

. In 1989, he was offered the post of the minister of finance in the

government of Bihar The Government of Bihar, known locally as the State Government, is the supreme governing authority of the Indian state of Bihar and its 9 divisions which consist of 38 districts . It consists of an executive, led by the Governor of Bihar, a ju ...

, headed by

Satyendra Narayan Sinha Satyendra Narayan Sinha (12 July 1917 – 4 September 2006) was an Indian politician and statesman, participant in the Indian independence movement, a leading light of Jaya Prakash Narayan's ‘ ''complete revolution''’ movement during the E ...

. In May 1999, Anwar along with other leaders of the INC,

and P. A. Sangma, rebelled against a foreign-origin Sonia Gandhi being chosen as the party's Prime Minister-candidate ahead of the general election. In an open letter, they questioned her "experience and understanding of public life" in being able to rule a country "with a population of 980 million". A few days later, they were expelled from the party's prime membership for six years. They later quit the party and formed

(NCP). However, the NCP chose to support the INC-led

United Progressive Alliance United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is a centre-left political alliance of predominantly left-leaning political parties in India. It was formed after the 2004 general election with support from left-leaning political parties when no single party ...

for two terms at the centre between 2004 and 2014. In October 2012, Anwar was appointed Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Processing. During the time, he served as a member of the

, the upper house of the

, representing Maharashtra. In September 2018, he resigned from the NCP over colleague Pawar's clean chit to Prime Minister

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament fro ...

in the

Rafale deal controversy The Rafale deal controversy is a political controversy in India related to the purchase of 36 Rafale multirole fighter aircraft for a price estimated at €7.87 billion (₹58,891 Crore) by the Defence Ministry of India from France's Dassa ...

, and re-joined the INC the following month.

References

External links

Tariq Anwar profile
at India.gov.in {{DEFAULTSORT:Anwar, Tariq 1951 births 20th-century Indian Muslims 21st-century Indian Muslims Living people Indian Youth Congress Presidents Nationalist Congress Party politicians from Bihar Indian National Congress politicians from Bihar Rajya Sabha members from Maharashtra People from Arwal district India MPs 1980–1984 India MPs 1984–1989 India MPs 1996–1997 India MPs 1998–1999 Lok Sabha members from Bihar India MPs 2014–2019 People from Katihar Politicians from Patna