LUCKNOW: A graduate of history from Lady Shri Ram (LSR) College, law degree holder from Delhi University, and a post-graduate in International Law and Politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), which is a part of the University of London, Iqra Hassan, at present, doesn’t have any other thought in mind but to retain Kairana assembly seat for Samajwadi Party on behalf of her brother Nahid, languishing in jail in connection with a case under Gangster Act.
As Nahid Hassan, who had been absconding in connection with the cases related to the Kairan migration issue for a year, was arrested immediately after he filed his nomination papers on January 14. He was produced in Shamli MP/MLA court and was sent to 14-day judicial custody. Later his bail plea was rejected prolonging his stay in jail.
Meanwhile, SP, under attack on giving ticket to Nahid, who had around a dozen and a half criminal cases lodged against him, made his younger sister step in to spearhead her brother's election campaign.
Iqra is not only consolidating support for her brother but has also filed her papers from the same seat to retain the Hassan family stronghold in case of any eventuality and Nahid fails to contests owing to his criminal credentials.
Moreover, her mother Tabassum Hassan has represented Kairana in Lok Sabah as a BSP MP in 2009 followed by 2018 when she drubbed the BJP’s Mriganka Singh in a by-poll. However, in 2019 she lost the Lok Sabha seat to BJP’s Pradeep Kumar.
The BJP has fielded Mriganka Singh, daughter of late BJP MP Hukum Singh from the seat. The contest in Kairana, be it Assembly or Lok Sabha, has invariably been between the two families – Hassans and Singhs – and is again set for the straight contest.
Iqra, 27, who came back from London in January 2021, is not new to politics and has contested Zila panchayat elections in 2015. This is her sixth election as she has been campaigning for family candidates in Lok Sabha and assembly elections since 2014. However, this is the first time that she is leading the election campaign for her brother.
Daughter of late Munawwar Hasan and Tabassum Hasan, Iqra thinks she has inherited the political acumen from her father and it is coming handy in the absence of her brother. She has begun door-to-door campaigning and is holding nukkad sabhas in the constituency.
Unfazed by the opposition's attack over her brother’s criminal credentials, Iqra feels that the ground reality is different from what is being projected. “If you go and take feedback from people, the story is entirely different from what is being projected by the opposition," she said recently while talking to media persons.
“Iqra has been reaching out to people of Kairana with a message that the Hasan family would continue to serve them without any discrimination as always," says a worker of RLD, the SP ally in western UP.