Najma Heptulla takes oath as Cabinet minister

from India Today

Having worked with the Congress for a long period, she eventually switched loyalties to the BJP in 2004 after she had differences with party president Sonia Gandhi.

Born in Bhopal in 1940, Najma Heptulla is the grand-niece of prominent freedom struggle leader and India’s first Education Minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. She has a Masters’ of Science Degree in Zoology and a PhD in Cardiac Anatomy from the University of Denver.

She steadily climbed up in the Congress party, heading several divisions of the party’s grassroots organisations. She became a Rajya Sabha member in 1980 and was the Deputy Chairperson of the Upper House from January 1985 to January 1986 and from 1988 to July 2004.

Author of several books and an activist, 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.

Heptulla joined the BJP in 2004. She declared that she was leaving the Congress due to the problems with party leadership. She was a Rajya Sabha member from Rajasthan from July 2004 to July 2010. She contested the 13th Vice-Presidential Elections held in August 2007 but lost to Hamid Ansari in the by 233 votes. She was nominated by the BJP for the upper house in 2012 from Madhya Pradesh.