LUCKNOW: Zufar Farooqui has been elected to head the UP Sunni Central Waqf Board (UPSCWB) for the third time in a row here on Tuesday. Farooqui defeated his nearest rival Imran Mabood Khan by one vote. Khan was supported by Samajwadi Party.
While Farooqui got six votes, advocate Imran Mabood Khan got five in a close contest. All 11 members of the board voted to elect the chairman.
UP Sunni Central Waqf Board tends to have 11 members of whom three are nominated by the state government and the rest eight are elected.
Last Friday, the board had elected 8 members unopposed followed by the nomination of three members by the state government on Saturday.
Two sitting MPs, 2 sitting MLAs, 2 Bar Council members, two Muttalvis, one social activist, one Islamic Scholar, and an officer of joint secretary level together form the UP Sunni Central Waqf Board.
In the election for the broad members, only Sunni Muslims can contest.
The government-nominated members of the Board are social worker Sabeeha Ahmed, Sunni cleric and principal of Darul Uloom Firangi Mahal Maulana Naeem-ur-Rehman Siddiqui, and UP Department of Health and Family Welfare’s joint director Dr Tabassum Khan.
The other members on the Board are its chairman Zufar Ahmad Farooqui, Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation (IICF) Trust member Adnan Farrukh, Samajwadi Party MP from Moradabad ST Hasan, BSP MP from Amroha Kunwar Danish Ali, SP MLA from Isauli (Sultanpur) Abrar Ahmad, SP MLA from Gopalpur (Azamgarh) Nafees Ahmad, and lawyers Imran Mabood and Abdul Razzaq.
The last time the Board was appointed as per the Waqf Act of 1995 on April 1, 2015, for a five-year term. Amid the pandemic, the state government had extended its term by six months twice.