PIONEERS | SEEMA
Upping the Ante DR. SADAF JAFFER, ACADEMIC AND POLITICIAN, IS NOW RUNNING FOR STATE OFFICE IN NEW JERSEY ALPANA VARMA
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r Sadaf Jaffer, the first South Asian American woman mayor in New Jersey, now plans to run for state assembly. If she wins, Jaffer, whose second term as mayor of Montgomery Township expired on December 31, 2020, could thus become the
8 | SEEMA.COM | MARCH 2021
first woman of South Asian origin and the first Muslim American to serve in the state legislature. She will be contesting as a Democrat from Legislative District 16. Jaffer told SEEMA over the phone, “To me, elected office is a calling. It always comes down to whether I have the community’s support to pursue an office to
represent them.” She added that in contesting she was responding to calls from members of the community asking her to represent them. “There are not enough South Asian women involved in politics and so we don’t get our perspective represented,” she says. She points out that more than 10 per
