Kaneez Fatima, the Congress party’s sole Muslim woman MLA in Karnataka, has said that the ban on wearing hijab in educational institutions of the state would be lifted.

“God willing, we will reverse the hijab ban in the coming days and we will get those girls back to classrooms and they will be able to appear for their exams,” Fatima told reporters. “They have lost two precious years.”

Despite the absence of an announcement in the party’s election manifesto, Congress party’s only Muslim woman MLA in Karnataka, Kaneez Fatima, stated that the ban on wearing hijab in educational institutions would be lifted.

The Congress party secured a majority in the Karnataka Assembly, winning 136 out of 224 seats. Kaneez Fatima herself won her constituency by defeating the BJP’s candidate.

The controversy regarding the hijab ban arose in December 2021, with protests spreading across the state. The Karnataka High Court upheld the ban, stating that wearing hijab was not essential to Islam. The matter was later challenged in the Supreme Court, which has yet to form a bench to hear the case.

Following the death of her husband, Qamar-ul-Islam, in September 2017, Fatima contested the Assembly elections for the first time in 2018. In February 2022, she took the lead in organizing a protest of Muslim girls in Kalburgi against the ban on wearing hijab.

Karnataka’s Education Minister BC Nagesh, who was responsible for implementing the hijab ban, lost his Tiptur seat in the elections. He was defeated by Congress candidate K Shadakshari by a significant margin of 17,652 votes. On the other hand, Yashpal Suvarna, a prominent figure in the hijab ban controversy, won the election from Udupi as a BJP candidate. Suvarna, who is the vice president of the Development Committee of Udupi Government PU Girls’ College, had previously made controversial remarks by referring to the students who challenged the hijab ban as “terrorists.”