By IANS,
Lucknow : Film actress and socialite Nafisa Ali was Sunday named the Samajwadi Party candidate for the Lucknow Lok Sabha seat.
Nafisa’s name was announced by party general secretary Amar Singh at a press conference here.
Nafisa’s name was proposed after the Supreme Court turned down Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt’s plea to suspend his six-year jail sentence to enable him to contest the Lok Sabha polls.
The Samajwadi Party had proposed his name for the Lucknow seat. Dutt, who is out on bail, was sentenced to six-year jail by a Mumbai court for illegally possessing weapons during the 1993 Mumbai riots.
Speaking at the press conference, Amar Singh blamed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for creating road blocks for party president Mulayam Singh Yadav and Dutt and helping Congress leader Jagdish Tytler, who was given a clean chit in a case related to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi.
“The CBI is framing Sanjay Dutt, who has not even killed a mosquito, and is instead helping the accused in the 1984 Sikh mass murder go scot free,” Singh alleged.
He said Nafisa, 52, had expressed a desire to get associated with the party as a worker after being impressed by its role in saving the Congress government during the July 22 trust vote last year.
“The party members took a decision to include her in the party and we welcome her with pride,” Singh said.
He also praised the former Miss India for her beauty and said he had become her admirer after watching her movie “Junoon” in 1979. Nafisa’s most recent film was “Life In A… Metro” with another actor-parliamentarian Dharmendra in 2007.
Nafisa, who has been close to the Congress party, particularly its president Sonia Gandhi, has accomplishments in several fields. She was the national swimming champion 1972-1974. She won the Miss India title in 1976 and was runner-up at the Miss International contest in 1977. She was also a jockey at the Calcutta Gymkhana in 1979.
She contested the 2004 Lok Sabha elections unsuccessfully from South Kolkata. In September 2005, she was appointed the chairperson of the Children’s Film Society of India (CFSI).