Samajwadi Party MP Shafiqur Rahman Barq passes away at 94 in Moradabad

Samajwadi Party MP Shafiqur Rahman Barq on Tuesday died at a private hospital in Uttar Pradesh’s Moradabad at the age of 94 after prolonged illness. He was admitted to the Siddha Hospital in Moradabad due to physical weakness and loose motion. 

The MP was diagnosed with kidney infection, according to an Aaj Tak report. Soon after the development, the Samajwadi Party extended its condolences to the departed soul.

“The demise of senior Samajwadi Party leader and several-time MP Shafiqur Rahman Barq Saheb is extremely sad. May his soul rest in peace. May the bereaved family members get the strength to bear this immense sorrow. Heartfelt tribute,” the party said on X (formerly Twitter). 

Born in July 1930, he started his political career with farmer leader and former Prime Minister of India Bharat Ratna Chaudhary Charan Singh. Shafiqur Rahman Barq was also the convenor of the Babri Masjid Action Committee. 

He was the oldest MP in Parliament. He represented the Sambhal constituency of Uttar Pradesh in the Lok Sabha. Barq has been elected 4 times as MLA and 5 times as Lok Sabha MP. He won the Moradabad Lok Sabha seat on the Samajwadi Party ticket thrice in 1996, 1998 and 2004. He, however, lost from the Moradabad seat in 1999. After this, he was successful in winning the Sambhal Lok Sabha seat in 2009 on a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) ticket. 

In 2014, however, the political veteran lost the Sambhal seat by merely 5,174 votes. Barq won the Sambhal seat on a Samajwadi Party ticket in 2019.  Besides his stellar electoral record, Barq was also controversy’s favourite child. 

He was in the news in 2019 for telling the Lok Sabha that Vande Bharat is against Islam and that Muslims cannot follow it. His statement was met with the chants of ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘Jai Shree Ram’ by several leaders in the Parliament. 

The Samajwadi Party leader also faced flak for defending Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in 2021. He told reporters that Taliban wanted to free their country and equated it to India’s freedom struggle.