Arif Beg (1935–2016) was a

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; , ) is a political party in India and one of the two major List of political parties in India, Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. BJP emerged out from Syama Prasad Mukherjee's ...

(BJP) leader. He hailed from Indore in

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (; ; ) is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal and the largest city is Indore, Indore. Other major cities includes Gwalior, Jabalpur, and Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, Sagar. Madhya Pradesh is the List of states and union te ...

state. His father, Qaramat ‘Pahalwan’ Baig, had reached Indore from Afghanistan.

Political career

He was an Indian Union Minister (1977–1980). He was a

Union Minister The Union Council of Ministers is the Cabinet (government), principal executive organ of the Government of India, which serves to aid and advise the President of India in execution of their functions.Article 74 of the ''Constitution of India' ...

Prime Minister of India The prime minister of India (ISO 15919, ISO: ) is the head of government of the Republic of India. Executive authority is vested in the prime minister and his chosen Union Council of Ministers, Council of Ministers, despite the president of ...

Morarji Desai's government. Also he was a

cabinet minister A minister is a politician who heads a ministry, making and implementing decisions on policies in conjunction with the other ministers. In some jurisdictions the head of government is also a minister and is designated the ' prime minister', ' p ...

in the

government of Madhya Pradesh The Government of Madhya Pradesh (abbreviated as MP) or Madhya Pradesh Government, is the supreme governing authority of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh and its 55 districts. It consists of an executive, led by the governor of Madhya Prade ...

Chief Minister A chief minister is an elected or appointed head of government of – in most instances – a sub-national entity, for instance an administrative subdivision or federal constituent entity. Examples include a state (and sometimes a union ter ...

Govind Narayan Singh Govind Narayan Singh (25 July 1920 – 10 May 2005), was an Indian politician. He was Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh from 30 July 1967 to 12 March 1969. He was also Governor of Bihar state from 26 February 1988 to 24 January 1989. Early ...

. He was the youngest minister in the cabinet at that time (1967–1969), and after being released from jail in emergency, he contested the Bhopal Lok Sabha as a rashtriya Lok Dal candidate in the

general election A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from By-election, by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. Gener ...

. He defeated senior Congress leader

Shankar Dayal Sharma Shankar Dayal Sharma (; 19 August 1918 – 26 December 1999) was an Indian lawyer and politician who served as the President of India from 1992 to 1997. Born in Bhopal, Sharma studied at Agra, Allahabad and Lucknow and received a doctorate i ...

by a margin of 109,000 votes, and later

became the

President of India The president of India (ISO 15919, ISO: ) is the head of state of the Republic of India. The president is the nominal head of the executive, the first citizen of the country, and the commander-in-chief, supreme commander of the Indian Armed ...

. He was also elected a Member of Parliament from Betul Lok Sabha of

state in the 1989

Lok Sabha election Lok or LOK may refer to: Places * Lok, Serbia, a village * Lok, Levice District, Slovakia, a village * Lok, Pakistan, a village * Loka (pronounced Lok): a plane of existence in Dharma People Surname Lok (English origin) * Anne Locke, Loc ...

, when he defeated Congress candidate Aslam Sher Khan. He has been a member of the

Bharatiya Jan Sangh The Akhil Bharatiya Jana Sangh ( BJS or JS, short name: Jan Sangh) was a Hindutva political party active in India. It was established on 21 October 1951 in Delhi by three founding members: Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Balraj Madhok and Deendayal ...

and a founding member of the

, has been the National Vice President of the BJP Chief Executive, as well as has held many important positions. He has the distinction of being the founder National President of the Bharatiya Janata Party Minority Front. Arif Beg (or Arif Baig) started his electoral journey when he was elected to Madhya Pradesh vidhan sabha in 1967 from Indore as a socialist. His half-brother Bala Baig was also a well-known figure in Indore, who spent 3 years in jail in 1990s for a host of illegal activities. Arif Beg soon joined Jana Sangh in 1973, as one of its earliest Muslim faces, who was later eclipsed in prominence when Sikander Bakht joined BJP in 1980. He was jailed during Emergency with other leaders of Jana Sangh, like Kushabhau Thakre. In 1977 he was elected to

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, also known as the House of the People, is the lower house of Parliament of India which is Bicameralism, bicameral, where the upper house is Rajya Sabha. Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha, Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by a ...

from

Bhopal Bhopal (; ISO 15919, ISO: Bhōpāl, ) is the capital (political), capital city of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh and the administrative headquarters of both Bhopal district and Bhopal division. It is known as the ''City of Lakes,'' due to ...

as Janata Party candidate. He lost from Bhopal in 1980 on Janata Party's ticket, and from Khandwa in 1984 on BJP's ticket. In 1989 he was elected to the

from Betul constituency as BJP's candidate. With Sikander Bakht becoming the most prominent Muslim in BJP, Arif Beg left the party in 1996, but he returned to it in 2003. He contested Bhopal again in 1998 but for Congress, and lost this time to BJP's Sushil Chandra Varma. He fought his last electoral battle in 2013 when, back in BJP by now, he was its losing candidate in 2013 Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha election from Bhopal North seat, from where Arif Aqueel of Congress won.

Death

Arif Beg died on September 5, 2016, in

at the age of 81.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beg, Arif 1930s births 2016 deaths Politicians from Bhopal India MPs 1977–1979 Lok Sabha members from Madhya Pradesh India MPs 1989–1991 People from Betul district Bharatiya Janata Party politicians from Madhya Pradesh Bharatiya Jana Sangh politicians Janata Party politicians Bharatiya Lok Dal politicians Samyukta Socialist Party politicians

Political career

Death

See also

References