H.A. Halim, who has been Speaker of the West Bengal Assembly for nearly 28 years, has expressed his unwillingness to contest any election on health grounds.
“I am not willing to contest Assembly elections any further and it is now up to the party to decide,” Mr. Halim of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) told The Hindu here on Tuesday.
The next Assembly elections are due in 2011. Mr. Halim said he had informed his decision to the party leadership.
“I had done so before the 2006 Assembly elections also but the party did not agree then. I was first elected Speaker in June 1982 and this is my sixth term in that office,” Mr. Halim said, seven days before the Budget session begins.
