Calcutta, Dec. 11: Mamata Banerjee today hailed the deceased Bengal Assembly Speaker Hashim Abdul Halim for always upholding "democratic values".

Addressing MLAs of all parties in the Assembly this afternoon, the chief minister said: "Hashim Abdul Halim raised the standards of parliamentary conduct and proceedings inside the House for almost three decades. He did justice to his chair by remaining neutral and always upheld democratic values. Ganatantra raksha korar khetre onake tai samabedana na janiye, sangrami abhinandan janai (rather than offering condolences, I salute his struggle to defend democracy)."

Halim passed away on November 2 at the age of 80 after suffering a heart attack. After a five-year stint as law minister in the first Left Front government of 1977, Halim was made the Speaker, a post he held for an uninterrupted 29 years, thus becoming the longest serving presiding officer of any legislature in India.

The chief minister said Halim made the Bengal Assembly relevant at the national level by "organising important and topical seminars and lectures. This made him earn the respect and adulation of those in the Opposition".

It was during Halim's tenure as Speaker that Mamata had marched into the Bengal Assembly in December 2006 after being denied entry into Singur. Trinamul MLAs vandalised the Assembly and Halim had thrown the Assembly open to the public to have a view of the vandalism.

While talking about Halim's skills, the chief minister touched upon her relationship with late chief minister Jyoti Basu and the interactions she had with him during the Singur and Nandigram movements.

"When Singur and Nandigram happened, Jyotibabu had called me to his residence. I discussed several things, though I will not say what we spoke about. There are times when I divulged some of the points we had discussed. But later, I felt it should not have been done,'' Mamata said today.

Leader of Opposition Surjya Kanta Mishra and education minister Partha Chatterjee also spoke on Halim.