Kaliganj (West Bengal): Sabina Yasmin is out on a door-to-door campaign in Palashi – the site of the historic battle between the British East India Company and the army of the Nawab of BeNGAlSiraj ud Daula, in 1757. It stops near Mira Balika Vidyaniketan. Tears stream down her cheeks as she meets parents, who are waiting in front of the school – exclusively for girls – to take their daughters home. “My daughter would be in fifth grade this year, too,” Sabina mumbles. “She also wanted to study at a big school like this.”
Sabina lost her daughter, Tamanna, on June 23, 2025. The nine-year-old was killed by a bomb thrown to celebrate Trinamool Congress’s Alifa Ahmed’s victory in a by-election in the Kaliganj Assembly constituency in West Bengal’s Nadia district.
“I am fighting to get justice for my daughter as well as to ensure that no other mother loses her child like I did,” Sabina tells parents in front of Mira Balika Vidyaniketan.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has now fielded her as its candidate in Kaliganj – to take on Alifa, who Prime Minister Mamata Banerjee’s party has once again fielded for this year’s Assembly elections.
Alifa, an engineer, quit her corporate job to contest the June 2025 by-election, which was necessitated after her father, Nasiruddin Ahmed, who was elected to the state assembly from Kaliganj in 2011 and 2021, died.
But her landslide victory against Bharatiya Janata Party’s Ashish Ghosh in the by-election was marred by the blast that killed Tamanna, daughter of Sabina and Hossain Shek.
Tamanna’s death came less than a year after the outrage over the rape and murder of a young doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, which put the ruling TMC on a tight leash and brought the state’s deteriorating law and order into focus.
The ruling party moved quickly to ensure that the killing of the nine-year-old did not spark new outrage.
Banerjee herself intervened and pushed the police to arrest several people responsible for the bomb blast, which the TMC’s rivals, the CPI(M) and the Bharatiya Janata Party, projected as a reflection of deteriorating law and order in West Bengal.
The police investigation could not convince Tamanna’s parents.
They rejected the offer of financial assistance from the KPM leaders. With the help of the CPI(M), they not only moved the Calcutta High Court seeking a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation, but also staged protests in Kaliganj and Kolkata.
Now, as a CPI(M) candidate, Sabina is not only citing her personal loss over the alleged rise in hooliganism during the TMC rule, but is also raising other issues – rising unemployment, closure of government schools, deteriorating roads and lack of efforts to ensure safe drinking water supply.
Alifa, on the other hand, is looking to cash in on the KPMG government’s welfare schemes, her father’s legacy and the development works she launched after winning the snap election last year. “I am sure that people will continue to shower their blessings on me and the TMC so that the Mamata Banerjee government continues the development work in Kaliganj,” she says.
However, factional strife within the IPC may cast a shadow over its prospects.
The BJP has fielded Bapan Ghosh to face TMC and CPI (M) candidates.
A revolt broke out even within the local CPI(M) unit after the party announced Sabina as its candidate and disaffected workers ransacked the party office in Kaliganj. The CPI(M) suspended several local leaders, which could prevent the party from mounting a major challenge to the CPM in the constituency.
Mir Zafar’s betrayal against Siraj ud Daula in 1757 changed the course of history. Two and a half centuries have passed, but treason remains a lurking threat on the Palash political battlefield.
