Sofia Firdous of the Congress scripted history as she became te first Muslim woman MLA in Odisha's history. Firdous, 32, who holds degrees in management and civil engineering, emerged victorious on the Barabati-Cuttack seat in the Odisha Assembly election results declared on June 4.
She defeated BJP’s Purna Chandra Mahapatra by a margin of 8,001 votes in the Barabati-Cuttack seat, where Biju Janata Dal (BJD)'s Prakash Chandra Behra came third.
Sofia Firdous is the daughter of senior Congress leader Mohammed Moquim, who was the MLA from the same seat before he was disqualified following a conviction in a corruption case. Following this, the Congress decided to field Sofia from the seat.
The 32-year-old is a B.Tech Civil Engineering graduate from the Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology under KIIT University in Bhubaneswar. She also completed an Executive General Management Program from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B) in 2022.
Before her electoral debut, Sofia was director of her father’s Metro Builders company. She is also associated with the Bhubaneswar unit of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Associations of India (Credai).
As per her poll affidavit submitted to the Election Commission, Sofia Firdous does not face any criminal charges. Her total assets stand at around Rs 5 crore, and she has liabilities of nearly Rs 28 lakhs.
In the 2019 assembly election, Sofia’s father, Moquim won the Barabati-Cuttack seat by 2,123 votes against BJD’s Debashish Samantaray.
In September 2022, the special vigilance judge in Bhubaneswar convicted Moquim and sentenced him to three years of rigorous imprisonment and fined him Rs 50,000 in connection with a corruption case. The Orissa High Court upheld the conviction in April 2024.
In the 2024 Assembly election, the BJP wrested power in Odisha by winning 78 out of the 147 constituencies, ending the 24-year reign of the BJD government led by Naveen Patnaik.
