Bengal Bypolls: Left Candidate Saira Shah Halim Feels Ballygunge may see ‘Silent’Makeover

Kolkata: Saira Shah Halim, daughter of a former Army general and wife of a doctor, who has made a mark in the city in her own right as an educator and poet, finds her new role as the CPI(M) candidate for Ballygunge Assembly seat by-poll challenging but not unsurmountable.

The party last won from the prestigious Ballygunge seat in south Kolkata in 2001 and secured a third position behind Trinamool Congress and BJP in the 2021 elections, which her husband Fuad Halim contested.         

"We are confident of giving a good fight, I am doing a door-to-door campaign eight hours every day, besides public meetings," Halim, who herself was surprised to have been selected as the CPI(M) candidate, said.

Halim, who described herself as a literary person, had to cancel plans for a trip to Assam after her name was announced.

"I was not expecting to be nominated and was planning to go to Assam … I had to cancel my tickets when the party leadership spoke to me since they wanted a cultural person and also as a woman candidate with a cosmopolitan background," she told PTI in an interview.

Halim asserted that she and a dedicated band of CPI(M) workers with her were not leaving any stone unturned to turn the tide. She also said that the“voters this time are silent”, implying that there may be a quite change in the voting pattern. Last year’s Assembly elections had seen TMC garnering 70.6% vote share, compared with BJP’s 20.7% and CPI(M)’s nearly 6%.

Holding TMC’s candidate Babul Supriyo as her main challenge, she claimed the people in the constituency have not taken kindly to the ruling party taking him in from BJP and fielding him as a candidate.

 "They (TMC) are banking on the so-called Mr heavyweight, they are basically relying on the goodwill of Subrata Mukherjee's work," she said.

The by-election to Ballygunge was necessitated by the demise of Mukherjee in November, 2021, a colossal figure in Bengal politics, who was an important minister in the Mamata Banerjee cabinet holding the panchayats portfolio.

"In Ballygunge, every ward is different from the other, there is a sizeable minority population which constitute 51% of the voters, a large Bengali intelligentsia; there are high-rises (where the rich live) as well as slums," she said.

The CPI(M) candidate claimed the death of student leader Anis Khan and the Bogtui killings will have an impact on the bypolls.

"The perception that the TMC is a party looking after the interests of minorities is wrong; these two incidents will affect it very badly," she said.

"If you cannot protect the people whose mandate you took, they will not vote for you again," she reasoned.

 She also claimed allegations of corruption, extortions and law and order issues were not going down well with the populace.

"Goonda culture has to come to an end in Bengal, which has always had a `bhadralok’ (gentleman’s world) image," she said.

Admitting that the world of poetry is very different from that of electoral politics, she said "I am really toiling very hard, I am in the thick of things, but I am liking it. I want a life of purpose that can make some difference, empowering women and the underprivileged, taking everyone together."

Despite the odds stacked against the rookie candidate, Halim, however, sounded confident of giving a good fight.

"The patch is very big, but signs are positive, from the signs I am getting from all fronts, people have decided that despite the symbol they will not vote for somebody who has this past," she said.

Maintaining that the last Assembly polls saw a very polarised election between TMC and BJP and people who wanted to stop BJP, felt they needed to vote for Mamata Banerjee, she said.

"Even if somebody is Mother Teresa or someone like Dr Fuad Halim who worked day and night for the people during the pandemic and did dialysis for Rs 50 only," the result would have been the same, she said.

Not hiding her bitterness to the Congress fielding a candidate for Ballygunge, she said that it will only help in dividing the votes where "we are trying to fight fascist forces.

"Like we fought together in the 2021 elections as the 'Sanyukta Morcha', here also the senior leadership of CPI(M) had requested the Congress not to put up a candidate but they have," she said.

She said that the people of Kolkata have rejected BJP as seen in the Assembly and the municipal corporation elections as they "do not like divisive politics."

Daughter of former deputy chief of Army Staff Lt General Z U Shah, she said "I have been part of the city’s cultural mileu, I have promoted books and have been judging Durga Puja pandals for the last six-seven years and have promoted Durga Puja for all as a cultural festival."

Born in Kolkata, she did her schooling from Lawrence School, Lovedale, in Ooty and her graduation from Sofia College, Ajmer.

Claiming that the local councillors of the wards belonging to the ruling party did not address the problems faced by the people, the CPI(M) candidate said that water scarcity, drainage, illegal constructions and corruption are issues that need to be taken care of.