Mumbai: Former Miss India and Hindi film actress Nafisa Ali’s film career may have been short but her stature in the industry is not less than a star.
Born 18 January 1957, Nafisa faced many difficulties in her life but none come close to battling a deadly disease like cancer. Relentless and dogged, Nafisa had the reputation of being a fighter.
And fight she did, even in finding love.
Nafisa was born into a Muslim Bengali family. She was the national swimming champion and became Miss India in 1976. Nafisa was in love with an army officer. He was a Colonel and polo player RS Sodhi.
Nafisa and Sodhi loved each other very much and decided to get married but Sodhi’s mother was not in favor of it. The reason behind this was the fact that both belonged to different religions.
But the couple eventually got married in Kolkata and the real difficulty started from here. Nafisa was not accepted by her mother-in-law, due to which she was forced to stay at her husband’s friends’ house. But after some time, the elder brother of her mother-in-law came and pleaded her to go home and also apologized to Nafisa. The couple got married again, and this time, with full pomp and show.
Nafisa contested the 2004 Lok Sabha elections unsuccessfully from South Kolkata. 5 April 2009, she contested the Lok Sabha election from Lucknow on the Samajwadi Party ticket after Sanjay Dutt’s disqualification by the Supreme Court on the basis of a prior conviction. She then rejoined the Indian National Congress party in November 2009 and said she is returning to Congress for life.
Nafisa is considered close to Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
