Shahnawaz Ali Raihan with Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee.
Credit: X/@AITC_Shahnawaz
One of the new faces that Trinamool Congress has fielded is 42-year-old Shahnawaz Ali Raihan from Malda Dakshin. What makes him stand apart is his scholarly background. He is currently pursuing his PhD from St Antony’s College, Oxford.
Interestingly, his thesis is on Communism, titled ‘Between Marx and Muhammad: Muslims and Communism in Bengal but he says the Marxists ended up being Capitalists and bourgeois and that TMC is the only party practising the desi brand of welfarism. Making his debut in politics, he says he has always been interested in politics.
A voracious reader of newspapers since childhood, he especially read up on all political news. A student of journalism, he has been writing edits for a while. He insists 'being new in power politics is not a deterrent’, as he has always been part of mass politics and part of many movements like Nandigram and anti-CAA campaigns, not only in India but in London as well.
Hailing from Mothabari in Malda district, he says Malda has been a bastion of Congress for long and there is great respect for Abdul Ghani Khan Choudhary, who is considered as a great son of Malda. But Raihan claims his successor and brother Abu Hasem Khan Choudhury, has done nothing for this border constituency.
Shahnawaz said his focus would be on development, especially girls' education and river erosion too. He says there are no good central government institutions in the constituency. He would attend Parliament regularly, debate, discuss and bring more central government funds for education and other developmental activities.
He does not much about BJP’s accusations of being an anti-CAA activist, as he asserts that he would continue to fight against politics of hate.
He believes CAA is not only anti-Muslim but anti-Bengali too as it mocks Bengali culture and food items.
Making an oblique reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks on eating non-vegetarian dishes during the month of Sawan, Raihan insists that Bengalis would continue to eat fish as Bengal’s brand of Hinduism is far more tolerant than BJP’s brand of Hinduism.
Being a border constituency, around 2 km away from Bangladesh, Malda Dakshin comprises Assembly segments in Malda district and two Assembly segments in Murshidabad. Muslims comprise over 51.27% of the population spread over Malda (Uttar) and Malda (Dakshin) constituencies. TMC has never won any of the districts’ Lok Sabha seats since its inception in 1998.
Now there are apprehensions among its residents about the consequences of CAA implementation.
Shahnawaz is up against BJP’s Sreerupa Mitra Choudhary, popularly known as Nirbhaya Didi, a journalist, a social activist and current BJP MLA from the English Bazaar Assembly seat.
As she chaired the special task force on rape, trafficking and violence against women after the 2012 Delhi gangrape, and also started the Nirbhaya gram initiative, a movement to protect the dignity of women, she is popularly called Nirbhaya didi. He also faces Congress’s Isha Khan Choudhury, who is the son of sitting MP Abu Hasem Choudhury, MP since 2009.