Nafisa
Ali, Winner of the Miss India crown at 19, runner up at the subsequent
Miss International contest, model, actress, celebrity wife, TV star and
the recipient of the Rajiv Gandhi Excellence Award. Before she bagged
the Miss India title in 1976, Nafisa was the national swimming champion
from 1972-1974. Nafisa, who was also a Calcutta Gymkhana jockey in 1979,
is actively involved with the non-governmental organisations -- Action
India and The Naz Foundation. Nafisa has also worked with the quake
victims in Kutch district of Gujarat. She runs an NGO Action 4 India.
The former national swimming champion and a renowned socialite, Nafisa
Ali has taken a headlong plunge into electoral politics. What awaits her
in her new avatar as Congress candidate in the South Kolkata Lok Sabha
constituency though, where she takes on Trinamool Congress chief Mamata
Banerjee, is choppy waters.Nafisa, 47, had left Calcutta when she was
just 24. Even so, she is determined to match Mamata in her bastion
stroke by stroke.Nafisa may sound confident but she is facing a tough
task in South Kolkata from where Mamata has been winning since 1991. She
also has to counter the CPI(M) candidate Rabin Deb.The Congress had come
a poor thrid in last elections and she is aware of the huge margin that
separated Mamata and the Congress loser --- well over four lakh votes.
