Fatima Rasool Siddique is the BJP candidate for the Bhopal (North) Assembly seat, earlier held by her father, Rasool Siddique, who as two-time Minister in the 1980s and 1990s was a true-blue Congress leader and a friend of the late Madhavrao Scindia. She is pitted against Arif Aqueel of the Congress, the man who defeated, and then replaced, her father in that seat, a fact that lends a piquancy to the contest.

As a daughter and politician, she has many scores to settle in this election, and has been attracting attention not just for these reasons but also the fact that she is the only Muslim candidate put up by the BJP in Madhya Pradesh .  For Ms. Siddique, who lost her father when just a child, the Congress became a distant comfort, as the years and her own youth ensured that there could be no passing on of her father’s mantle to her. “The Congress of the past no longer exists in any case. Where are the leaders like Shyama Charan Shukla,” she says.

Even so, her decision to join the BJP and contest on its ticket must be a surprise to those around her? Not really, she replies. “I was approached in the 2013 polls too, but I had some reservations and couldn’t make up my mind on time,” she says. “This time around, there was no hesitation, as I have seen the warm-hearted kindness of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan especially towards the girl child.”

Raising her political stock, Mr. Chouhan accompanied her to the Collectorate as she filed her nomination papers.

The BJP is hardly a natural home for the daughter of a Congress man, that too a Muslim, but Ms. Siddique says no one puts any questions on her choice of party. “Most people walk up to me and say how my father had helped them as Minister with jobs, water pumps, hospital admissions, etc.,” she says. On triple talaq, Ms. Siddique maintains a diplomatic line. “Islam is clear on divorce. It should be the last option and preservation of the family should be the first priority,” she says. With a Congress pedigree in the largely majoritarian BJP, Ms. Siddique will need those diplomatic skills.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Elections> Madhya Pradesh 2018 / by Nistula Hebbar / Bhopal – November 16th, 2018