Farzana Raja (born January 2, 1970) is a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan. She is Chairperson of Benazir Income Support Program (BISP), a program which aids impoverished families in Pakistan. Although Farzana Raja was born in Gujrat but she belongs to a Shia Muslim family of the Gujar Khan, a tehsil of Rawalpindi and Chak Rajgan is her village which is situated in Gujar Khan. She had married Pir Mukarram ul Haq from a well known political feudal family of Sindh. Later they divorced and Farzana Raja went on marrying Ammar Turabi the son of famous Shia Scholar Allamah Rasheed Turabi.
Education
Raja was born in Gujrat. She earned a Bachelors of Arts degree from University of the Punjab.
Political career
Farzana Raja is affiliated with the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). Farzana Raja has contested the election for the district Rawalpindi assembley in 1998 which she lost with wide margin. She was a member of the Provincial Assembly of the Punjab from 2002–2007 in a reserved seat for women.
In February, 2008, she was elected to the National Assembly in the Pakistani general election, 2008 to a reserve seat.
In October 2008, she was appointed by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani to the position of Chairperson of the Benazir Income Support Program. The BISP, named in honour of the late former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto is a program which aims to offset the effects of inflation on the poorest people in Pakistan, including families headed by widowed or divorced women, or families with persons with disabilities or chronic disease.
In June 2009 in her capacity as BISP Chairperson, she attended a ceremony that announced a financial package for the internally displaced who would receive a monthly grant of Rs1,000 as part of the BISP programme.
In July 2009 she visited New York and met at the United Nations with representatives of the United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Children's Fund, the United Nations Development Fund for Women and the World Bank.Whereas in 2012 she was appointed a Federal Minister in the Gillani cabinet and was later retained as Federal Minister without portfolio in charge of the Benazir Income Support Programme under Raja Pervez Ashraf's government.
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