Who Is Sofia Firdous? Meet Odisha’s First-Ever Woman Muslim MLA

Sofia Firdous, a Congress MLA from Barabati-Cuttack, Odisha, has etched her name in history by becoming the first Muslim woman legislator elected to the Odisha Assembly. Firdous defeated BJP’s Purna Chandra Mahapatra by a margin of 8,001 votes.

More About Sofia Firdous

32-year-old Sofia Firdous hails from a political family and is the daughter of senior Congress leader Mohammed Moquim. She succeeded her father in the 2024 Odisha Assembly elections and emerged victorious.

Firdous holds a degree in Civil Engineering from Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology and completed an Executive General Management Program from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB) in 2022.

In 2023, Firdous was elected as the president of the Bhubaneswar chapter of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India (CREDAI) and serves as the East Zone Coordinator for the CREDAI women’s wing. She is also the Co-Chair of the Bhubaneswar Chapter of the CII – Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) and a core member of INWEC India.

Sofia Firdous follows in the footsteps of Nandini Satpathy, Odisha’s first woman chief minister, who represented the same constituency in 1972.

BJP Secures Majority in 2024 Odisha Assembly Elections

In a significant political shift, the BJP secured a majority in the 2024 Odisha Assembly elections, winning 78 of the 147 seats and ending Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and Biju Janata Dal’s (BJD) 24-year rule in the state.

BJP Dominates Lok Sabha Elections in Odisha

In the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP claimed victory in 20 of the 21 seats in Odisha, marking a significant increase from their tally of 12 seats in the 2019 polls. The remaining seat went to Congress, while the BJD failed to win a single seat.