"A Personal Call To Protect Peaceful Malda From Communal Forces": Shahnawaz Ali Raihan

After Mamata Banerjee announced his candidature for the Malda South (Dakshin) constituency for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, Shahnawaz Ali Raihan said the decision to take the electoral plunge was a personal call to protect the peaceful and secular fabric of his native place, Malda.

After thanking Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee and party general secretary Abhishek Banerjee for inviting him to take the political route to address the burning social issues facing the country, Mr. Raihan, a student activist-turned-academic, told Timeline that the BJP”s condemnable communal polarisation in the country as a whole and in Malda in particular led him to feel it was high time to seize the opportunity to effect change.

“For the last couple of months, I have been worried about the propaganda unleashed against Malda”s history and its historical architecture. So, this is a personal call to participate in the elections so that I can make a significant contribution to protect the peaceful and secular Malda,” Shahnawaz Ali Raihan told Timeline.

He said the Congress party, whose Abu Hasem Khan Choudhury has represented the Malda South constituency since 2009, has not been effective, and they have failed to make any productive response to the communalisation efforts in the area. Quoting numbers from the last Assembly and local body elections, he added that the support base of the Congress party has dwindled in the area, and he is confident of winning the constituency.

He expressed confidence in defeating the BJP, stating that the party machinery in the area is strong and that this will be a great advantage for him.

In the last elections Abu Hasem Khan Choudhury defeated BJP candidates Sreerupa Mitra Chaudhury with a margin of 8,222 votes. Trinamool’s Md Moazzem Hossain came third. This time as well, BJP has fielded Sreerupa Mitra Chaudhury, and Congress is yet to announce its candidate.