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WHO IS SHAZIA ILMI

Shazia Ilmi is an Indian television journalist-turned-politician and a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
 
She comes from a Kanpur-based Muslim family with links to the BJP and the Indian National Congress (INC). Ilmi’s brother is Dr Aijaz Ilmi, a member of the BJP and her sister is married to Arif Mohammad Khan, a former Congress politician who is now the governor of Kerala.
 
Ilmi spent around 15 years in television news and documentary production and also led a media campaign for an anti-corruption Bill. She was previous a member of the national executive of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Therehad been a controversy when a sting operation allegedly showed her and other AAP leaders like Kumar Vishwas raising funds through "illegal" means. At the time, she had offered to quit the party but the AAP leadership had rejected it after watching the entire raw footage of the sting and finding the operation to be “a political conspiracy”.
 
In 2014, she contested the Lok Sabha elections on an AAP ticket from the Ghaziabad constituency and lost to the BJP’s V K Singh. Later, on May 24, 2014, Ilmi resigned from AAP citing "lack of inner party democracy".
 
On January 16, 2015, she joined the BJP, hailing the party for "change and development". But she chose not to contest the Delhi Assembly elections held that year.
 
 

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