Baba Siddique’s long arc, from lowest Congress rung to the cream of Bollywood

By 1988, he had risen to the position of president of the Mumbai Youth Congress and was elected as a councillor in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in 1992.

NCP leader Baba Siddique was shot dead in Mumbai on Saturday. (Express file photo by Sankhadeep Banerjee)

During his ascent, Siddique developed a close relationship with Sunil Dutt, a prominent Congress MP who represented Mumbai North West for five consecutive terms. This connection proved instrumental in securing Siddique an MLA ticket in 1999 from Bandra West, which he successfully won, retaining the seat for three consecutive terms.

From 2004 to 2008, Baba Siddique served as the Maharashtra Minister of State for Food & Civil Supplies, Labour, FDA, and Consumer Protection in the Congress-NCP government.

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Known as the Congress party’s Muslim face, Siddique faced a significant political setback when he lost the 2014 elections to the BJP’s Ashish Shelar. Since then, he had been striving to revive his political career. Although he did not contest elections himself, he managed to secure a seat for his son Zeeshan Siddique from Bandra East in the 2019 Assembly elections, and he won what was considered a Shiv Sena bastion by a narrow margin of 5,000 votes.

By 1988, he had risen to the position of president of the Mumbai Youth Congress and was elected as a councillor in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in 1992.

However, Siddique had a fallout with the Congress due to its decision to ally with the Shiv Sena and form the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government. Actively seeking a political pathway for himself and to secure his son’s political future, Siddique is believed to have seriously considered shifting his political base to Bihar, where his family had roots, at one point.

Congress sources say he even sought a Rajya Sabha seat from RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, but was unsuccessful.

A view of the location where NCP leader Baba Siddique was shot at. (Express photo)

Siddique finally saw an opportunity to revive his political career following the splits in the Shiv Sena and NCP, and the emergence of a new political landscape in the state.

In February this year, ending his 48-year association with the Congress, Siddique left the party to join the Ajit Pawar-led NCP.

While political expediency played a role in his decision, given that this NCP also had ties with both the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and BJP, his ongoing troubles with the Enforcement Directorate (ED) were also a significant factor. In 2017, the ED had raided properties linked to him in Bandra as part of a money laundering investigation related to a slum rehabilitation project.

Away from politics, Siddique’s claim to fame were his extravagant iftar parties. These gatherings attracted numerous celebrities, including one famously attended in 2013 by superstars Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan, which is believed to have marked the beginning of the end of a long-lasting feud between them.

As food, laughter and camaraderie flowed, the two actors were spotted having a warm conversation and hugging. Spotted in the middle, basking in the glory of a Bollywood moment that would go down in history, was Baba Siddique.