Former CPM leaders, YouTube star in new Haj panel appointees

Chairperson A P Abdullahkutty, the BJP national vice-president, was selected unanimously. The two women chairpersons – a first for the Haj panel – now are Munnawari Begum from Tamil Nadu and Mafuja Khatun from West Bengal. While Munnawari has been with the BJP for over two decades, a span during which the party was virtually non-present in Tamil Nadu, Mafuja was earlier in the CPM, like Abdullahkutty. She was one of the BJP’s earliest discoveries in West Bengal, and has now risen to vice-president of its state unit, and was its first Muslim woman candidate for a Lok Sabha seat.

Abdullahkutty began his political career in student politics, becoming the general secretary of the university union and going on to become the state president of the SFI, the CPM’s student body, in 1998.

He became a prominent name in Kerala politics when he defeated Congress Kerala chief Mullappally Ramachandran twice consecutively, 1999 and 2004, from the Kannur Lok Sabha constituency. In 2009, he ran into troubled waters with the CPM leadership for his praise of Narendra Modi’s Gujarat model.

Expelled by the party, he joined the Congress the same year, and continued to rack up victories in the Assembly elections. His streak ran out in 2016, when he lost from Thalassery.

In 2019, Abdullahkutty joined the BJP, and in September 2020, was elevated to the post of BJP national vice-president.

Mafuja was a two-time CPM MLA from Kumarganj in South Dinajpur when, in 2017, she joined the BJP that was trying to find its feet in West Bengal. Within six months, she was elevated to the post of vice-president of the BJP’s minority morcha, a recognition of her organisational skills and huge popularity in Muslim-dominated areas in Dinajpur, Murshidabad districts. The BJP looked to Mafuja to particularly expand its base among the Muslim women voters.

Mafuja had another plus, proving a social media sensation with her speeches, many of which went viral on YouTube. In 2019, the BJP made her the state’s first minority woman vice-president.

Visited Shri @blsanthosh Ji after being elected as the Chairperson of Haj Committee of India for his blessings, prayers, guidance and motivation.#rss@bjp4India @bjp4karnataka pic.twitter.com/XrelKevNoF

— A P Abdullakutty (@a_abdullakutty) April 22, 2022

This was followed by the BJP leadership fielding Mafuja from Murshidabad’s Jangipur constituency in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The other contenders on the seat included sitting Congress MP and former President Pranab Mukherjee’s son Abhijit Mukherjee. While Mafuja lost, there was no going back for her.

A long-time member of the BJP, Munnawari first came into prominence when she was roped in to translate then Prime Minister contender Narendra Modi’s speeches into Tamil in rallies across the state during the 2014 Lok Sabha campaign. Appointed the BJP minority cell vice-president in 2014, she is now a member of the Central Waqf Council as well as a member of the general body of the Maulana Azad Education Foundation, which falls under the Minorities Ministry.