Khwaja Haleem, former Uttar Pradesh minister passes away

Khwaja Haleem (78), the former Uttar Pradesh minister and senior Samajwadi Party leader, has passed away in New Delhi on February 16, 2018. Haleem, who belongs to a family of freedom fighters, completed his masters’ degree from the Aligarh Muslim University in 1969. He started his political career with the Youth Congress in the early 1970s.He later joined the Lok Dal and was elected to the Vidhan Sabha from Aligarh Assembly constituency in 1980. He remained a Mulayam Singh loyalist ever since, and was elected twice for the Vidhan Parishad. In 1990, Haleem was appointed as the chairman of Uttar Pradesh Minority Commission and was the member of the Samajwadi Party Central Committee for nearly two decades. In 2014, he was appointed as advisor in tourism department by then chief minister Akhilesh Singh Yadav.