Calcutta South: Nafisa Ali

MANDATE 2004/CONSTITUENCY WATCH

Delhi knew her as an activist for AIDS education and an important attendee of polo shows, cocktail parties and fashion shows.

But if Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave could bring glamour to causes, Nafisa Ali reckons she can too. She may not win the Calcutta South constituency, but at least she will have arrived as a political activist.

The Congress candidate against Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has a grouse against the world. She feels she is not taken seriously. "All the newspapers note is which party I went to. No one remembers all the other things I have done," she fumed to a friend recently.

There's her work in Gujarat, she sniffed and her AIDS clinic in Delhi, that people think runs itself. Actually, there is more to the lissom Ali than people give her credit for.

That she likes attending parties is clear from the number of them she goes to. But she is discriminating about where she's seen""and her appearances at the do's are calculated to help her causes.

Before the last Budget, she decided to leverage the polo network and called on Union Finance Minister Jaswant Singh to get him to drop duties on a new retroviral anti-AIDS drugs that is to be marketed in India. Singh got her relief to the tune of a few crore rupees by giving instructions to the health ministry.

Similarly Amitabh Bachchan donated a few lakh of rupees for her AIDS clinic. She has to keep getting her name in the newspapers. This is one way she can support her cause.

Few know that her association with politics is not new. Of course, she is CPI leader Indrajit Gupta's niece. But Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit wanted her to contest the Assembly elections in Delhi. That did not happen.

Then, the Congress, because of her anti-communalism work in Gujarat (and the fact that Chief Minister Narendra Modi has issued an order banning her entry into Gujarat), thought of fielding her against Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani from Gandhinagar. That plan too was shelved.

Meanwhile, irritated at the Congress procrastination, Ali almost decided she was going to join a new party floated by industrialist and school friend Vijay Mallya (having previously been invited to join him on his jet to South Africa to watch the cricket match along with other friends like Ritu Beri).

Pranab Mukherjee called her to consider contesting against Mamata. Nafisa Ali agreed instantly. She knew that even if she lost, she would earn points for trying. And who knows, maybe a Rajya Sabha seat later!

There is a freshness and honesty about Ali's motives that is endearing. She was recently ploughing through scholar Christopher Jaffrelot's book on the Sangh "because I really want to understand what its all about".

She has prepared to lose the election because, she seriously believes, "like Richard Gere" that the journey is as important as the destination.