Rasheed Masood

Life

He earned B.Sc. and LLM from Aligarh Muslim University. Masood was an agriculturist by profession. He was general secretary of Bharatiya Lok Dal between 1975 and 1977. He was elected to the 6th Lok Sabha for the first time on a Janata Party ticket in the post-emergency polls in 1977. He went on to become the treasurer of the Janata Parliamentary Party between 1979 and 1980.

Masood was re-elected to the 7th Lok Sabha on a Lok Dal ticket in the 1980 polls. After being the chief whip of Lok Dal in 1982, he became the deputy leader of Lok Dal Parliamentary Party for more than a year. He was the member of the Rajya Sabha from 1986 to '89. From 1989 to '91, he was a member of the 9th Lok Sabha. From April to November 1990, he was Minister of Health and Family Welfare (Independent Charge) in the V P Singh government. In 1991 he was re-elected to the 10th Lok Sabha.

In the late eighties, he was associated with Janata Party and was its deputy Parliamentary party leader. In the nineties, he joined the Samajwadi Party. He was the member of the 14th Lok Sabha from 2004 to 2009. In 2010, he was re-elected to the Rajya Sabha.

On 12 December 2011, he resigned from the Rajya Sabha (Upper House) and from the Samajwadi Party and joined INC. He was elected as the special member of CWC (Congress Working Committee). He became the chairman of APEDA on 4 April 2013 for a term of 3 years.

On 5 October 2020, Masood died from complications of COVID-19 during the COVID-19 pandemic in India.

Elections Contested

Lok Sabha

YearConstituencyResultVote percentageOpposition CandidateOpposition PartyOpposition vote percentageRef1977 Saharanpur 67.32% Zahid Hasan INC25.62% 1980 Saharanpur 37.60% Qamar Alam JNP27.07% 1984 Saharanpur 39.22% Chaudhary Yashpal Singh INC53.13% 1989 Saharanpur 54.55% Chaudhary Yashpal Singh INC34.09% 1991 Saharanpur 41.62% Nakli Singh BJP38.52% 1996 Saharanpur 32.89% Nakli Singh BJP33.24% 1998 Saharanpur 18.07% Nakli Singh BJP33.19% 1999 Saharanpur 27.64% Mansoor Ali Khan BSP30.53% 2004 Saharanpur 35.67% Mansoor Ali Khan BSP 32.96% 2009 Saharanpur 32.87% Jagdish Singh Rana BSP 43.21%

Rajya Sabha Election History

Corruption allegations and conviction

On 19 September 2013, a Special CBI court held Rasheed Masood guilty in a case of corruption and other offences. He was held guilty of fraudulently nominating undeserving candidates to MBBS seats allotted to Tripura in medical colleges across the country from the central pool.

On 1 October 2013, Rasheed was sentenced to four years in jail. As a result of the conviction, he was disqualified from the Parliament of India. He, thus got the dubious distinction of becoming the first elected member of parliament to be disqualified from the Parliament of India, in the entire history of the Republic of India. He was serving as a member of parliament, representing the Congress Party, to the upper house of the Indian parliament when the verdict was pronounced and his membership stripped.