Imran Pratapgarhi (born 6 August 1987) is an Indian Urdu-language poet and politician, who is a Member of Parliament in the

Rajya Sabha Rajya Sabha (Council of States) is the upper house of the Parliament of India and functions as the institutional representation of India’s federal units — the states and union territories.https://rajyasabha.nic.in/ It is a key component o ...

, the upper house of Indian Parliament. He represents the Indian state of

Maharashtra Maharashtra () is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. It is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, the Indian states of Karnataka and Goa to the south, Telangana to th ...

. Pratapgarhi is known for his protest poetry that particularises the

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

experience and identity in India and other parts of the world; he is especially known for his Urdu

nazm ''Nazm'' () is a major part of Urdu and Sindhi poetry that is normally written in rhymed verse and also in modern prose-style poems. is a significant genre of Urdu and Sindhi poetry; the other one is known as ghazal. is significantly written ...

s "Madrasa" and "Han Main Kashmir Hoon." Pratapgarhi was a losing candidate in the

2019 Indian general election General elections were held in India in seven phases from 11 April to 19 May 2019 to elect the members of the 17th Lok Sabha. Votes were counted and the result was declared on 23 May. Around 912 million people were eligible to vote, and vote ...

as an

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party, or simply the Congress, is a political parties in India, political party in India with deep roots in most regions of India. Founded on 28 December 1885, it was the first mo ...

candidate from

Moradabad Moradabad () is an industrial city, commissionerate, and municipal corporation in Moradabad district of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is situated on the banks of the Ramganga river, at a distance of from the national capital, New Del ...

Lok Sabha constituency. Pratapgarhi was appointed chairman of the Minority Department of the

All India Congress Committee The All India Congress Committee (AICC) is the presidium or the central decision-making assembly of the Indian National Congress. It is composed of members elected from States and union territories of India, state-level Pradesh Congress Commit ...

on 3 June 2021.

Early life and poetic career

Pratapgarhi was born as Mohammed Imran Khan to Mohammed Iliyas Khan in

Pratapgarh, Uttar Pradesh Pratapgarh, also called Belha or Bela Pratapgarh, is a town and municipality in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. It is the administrative headquarters of Pratapgarh district, part of the Prayagraj division, formerly known as Allahabad. ...

. He completed his master's in

Hindi literature Hindi literature () includes literature in the various Central Indo-Aryan languages, also known as Hindi, some of which have different writing systems. Earliest forms of Hindi literature are attested in poetry of Apabhraṃśa such as Awad ...

from

Allahabad University The University of Allahabad is a Central University located in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. It was established on 23 September 1887 by an act of Parliament and is recognised as an Institute of National Importance (INI). It is the 4th oldest mode ...

. At that time he wrote poetry in

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

and participated in ''Kavi Sammelans'' (poetry symposiums). He started participating in ''Mushairas'' in 2008 and his ''

Nazm ''Nazm'' () is a major part of Urdu and Sindhi poetry that is normally written in rhymed verse and also in modern prose-style poems. is a significant genre of Urdu and Sindhi poetry; the other one is known as ghazal. is significantly written ...

'' ''Madrasa'' became popular. Apart from ''Madarsa'', his other writings include ''Filisteen'', ''Najeeb'', and ''Umar'' out of over 100 Nazms written by him.

Political career

A critic of

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician who has served as the Prime Minister of India, prime minister of India since 2014. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Par ...

, Pratapgarhi joined the

and contested in

from

, where he lost to S. T. Hasan of

Samajwadi Party The Samajwadi Party ( SP; ) is a Socialism, socialist political party in India. It was founded on 4 October 1992 by former Janata Dal politician Mulayam Singh Yadav and is headquartered in New Delhi. It is the third-largest political party in ...

with a margin of more than half a million votes (590,218 votes). Pratapgarhi was appointed

AICC The Akaike information criterion (AIC) is an estimator of prediction error and thereby relative quality of statistical models for a given set of data. Given a collection of models for the data, AIC estimates the quality of each model, relative to e ...

minority department chairman on 3 June 2021. In June 2022, Pratapgarhi was elected to the

from Maharashtra on

nomination.

Positions held

, 2022 , Elected to

from

* Member, Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare * Member, Consultative Committee for the Ministry of Commerce and Industry 2024 * Member, Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture * Member, Consultative Committee for the Ministry of Minority Affairs

Awards

Yash Bharti Award Yash Bharati Award is the highest civilian award of the Government of Uttar Pradesh. Instituted in 1994, it is awarded to those personalities whose contribution is remarkable in the field of literature, social work, medicine, film, science, jour ...

2016 - highest Award of

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh ( ; UP) is a States and union territories of India, state in North India, northern India. With over 241 million inhabitants, it is the List of states and union territories of India by population, most populated state in In ...

Government.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pratapgarhi, Imran 1987 births Living people Indian male poets Urdu-language poets from India Hindi-language poets Indian lyricists Poets from Uttar Pradesh Indian National Congress politicians from Uttar Pradesh People from Pratapgarh, Uttar Pradesh 21st-century Indian Muslims Rajya Sabha members from Maharashtra

Early life and poetic career

Political career

Positions held

Awards

See also

References