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Hashim Abdul Halim Politician

Hashim Abdul Halim is an Indian politician and the former Speaker of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly. Halim started his career as a practising lawyer. Halim's father was Abdul Halim, an Alderman at the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, his uncle, M. Ishaque was a member of the Congress Party and a freedom fighter. He has also served as the Chairman of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and President of the World Federation of United Nations Association. He was elected as the member of the Legislative Assembly of West Bengal for the first time in 1977. Thereafter, he has served the assembly for 6 terms from 1977 to 2011. He served as the Minister for Judicial Affairs in the Government of West Bengal from 1977 to 1982. He was also an MLA, elected from the Amdanga constituency in the West Bengal state assembly election, 1977 until 2006, when he shifted his constituency to the Entally constituency. He was the MLA from Entally till 2011. He has served in numerous departments and committees of West Bengal. Halim has also represented West Bengal at numerous seminars in India and abroad. Halim has been the longest serving speaker of any Legislative Assembly in India, serving for a consecutive 29 years from 6 May 1982 to 2011. After the 2011 elections in Bengal, Halim was replaced by Biman Banerjee as the Speaker of the West Bengal Vidhan Sabha. Halim holds a master's degree in commerce, a bachelor's degree in law and was awarded an honorary doctorate by Soka University, Tokyo. Halim is married and has four children. His son, Fuad Halim, was the CPI(M) candidate for the Ballygunge constituency in the 2011 West Bengal elections, but lost to Trinamool Congress' Subrata Mukherjee by 41,000 votes.