Kaneez Fatima

Some Lesser Known Facts About Kaneez Fatima

• Kaneez Fatima is an Indian politician who was elected as MLA from Gulbarga Uttar in Karnataka in 2018 and 2023. She was the wife of the politician late Qamar ul Islam, a prominent INC in Karnataka who served as a Member of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly six times.

• Fatima’s husband, Qamar ul Islam, was elected as the MLA from Gulbarga Assembly constituency in 1978, 1989, 1994, and 1999 and then from Gulbarga Uttar Assembly constituency in 2008 and 2013. After his death, Kaneez stepped into his shoes and won the Gulbarga Uttar seat in 2018 and retained it in the 2023 Karnataka Legislative Assembly elections. She was the only Muslim woman candidate fielded by INC in the 2023 Karnataka Assembly elections.

  

• Initially, Fatima refused to contest the 2018 Karnataka Legislative Assembly elections, but she agreed after CM Siddaramaiah, Mallikarjun Kharge, and KPCC chief G Parameshwara persuaded her.

• In 2019, Fatima made headlines for spearheading protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in Kalaburagi. The protestants defied the Section 144 notification. She was the major catalyst in mobilising the crowd in the region. The CAA was widely criticised for discriminating on the basis of religion, particularly for excluding Muslims.

• She again came into the limelight in 2022 when she participated in the anti-hijab ban movement. She protested alongside Muslim female students when the Karnataka BJP government banned girls from wearing hijabs in state-run institutions and universities.