Kolkata: In the news for his controversial statement about the Muslim population in his state, Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Firhad Hakim drew a rare censure from his party boss and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
The Muslims, he had told students from the community in his Saturday address, would soon become a majority in the state.
The TMC was swift in distancing itself from the statement, while the opposition took glee at his discomfiture. But, Trinamool insiders maintain that the latest controversy is unlikely to make any dent to his clout in the party and, more importantly, his ties with Mamata.
Political watchers assert that it is not the first time that the Kolkata mayor is facing flak for his comments: he had described Garden Reach constituency as “mini-Pakistan” in 2016 and called the BJP’s Basirhat parliamentary candidate a “maal” in November.
Nothing has shaken Mamata’s trust on her Cabinet minister, be it the Narada sting controversy, or the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raid at his home last year in its probe into an alleged recruitment scam in civic bodies.
A key minority face of the Trinamool, Hakim wears his loyalty to Mamata on his sleeve. In his own words, Hakim had dodged two bullets outside Writers Building, the former state secretariat, when the police opened fire at a rally in 1993 while he was leading a rally with Mamata. “The boy next to me was hit by a bullet. But that didn’t stop me, I can give my life for Mamata Banerjee,” Hakim had said.
The four-time MLA is well-known for organising a mega Durga Puja, the largest religious festival in West Bengal. Every year, Chetla Agrani, the crowd-puller pandal in Kolkata led by Hakim, witnesses the arrival of Mamata.
Once, Mamata told reporters that ‘Bobby’, as Hakim is called in the inner party circles, and Trinamool minister Aroop Biswas always competed on who could organise a bigger puja and who got the first appointment from the CM to inaugurate the pandal.
Hakim began his political career with student politics in the Congress in the early 1990s. He has never shied away from praising former prime minister Indira Gandhi, who he considers a role model after Mamata.
Back in 1984, when a 29-year-old Mamata fought her first Lok Sabha poll, Hakim became her trusted lieutenant. “In those days, there were hand-written voter slips. I wrote slips for Mamata Didi as she was one of us fighting the big election; since then our association only strengthened. If she had not broken away from the Congress and made Trinamool, I wouldn’t have been where I am today,” Hakim said in a television interview after being appointed the first minority mayor of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) since Independence in 2018.
There are very rare occasions when Hakim is not spotted next to Mamata at public events. Some within the Trinamool describe him as the CM’s “man-Friday” especially after Didi’s loyalist and former education minister Partho Banerjee was arrested for irregularities in school recruitments in July 2022.
From trouble shooting in districts to handling law and order, Hakim is seen at the forefront crisis-crossing the state to carry out Mamata’s order. “I hope in my next life I’m either a singer or an actor, then my ticket in TMC is confirmed,” Hakim once jokingly told reporters at the state assembly.
His room at the Vidhan Sabha is always packed with reporters, cabinet colleagues and officials. In between work, he shares stories of his past and anecdotes afterall his political career has seen a steady rise within the ranks.
In an interview to Anandabazar Patrika two years ago, the TMC leader had said that he was a businessman by profession, whereas a politician by habit. Hakim had gone on to recollect how he, along with five friends, had started an ice mill in Canning after securing a government loan in his youth.
The 65-year-old was a KMC councillor for 15 years, borough chairman, MMIC (Member Mayor In Council), before becoming a minister in Mamata’s cabinet. He has held key portfolios such as transport and fire departments, and urban development, and has been the Kolkata Mayor since the last five years.
An avid sports fan, Hakim with his first salary of Rs 450 had bought membership of the East Bengal football club. “I had paid Rs 406 so that I could sit in the gallery and watch the matches,” he recalled.
Hakim has three daughters, the youngest is a lawyer, the middle a doctor, and the eldest is with the Trinamool’s women wing. When he’s not holding political meetings, he spends time with his granddaughter whom he loves to drop to school and finds her birthday party themes “a task to fulfill”.
A week after the Trinamool’s 2021 assembly election victory, a drama unfolded outside Hakim’s house, when CBI officers reached to arrest him in the Narada sting tape case. Hakim was allegedly caught on camera taking bribes in the tape that was released before the 2016 state polls.
His supporters lay on the road, daring the CBI team to take their leader over their dead bodies. His supporters gheraoed the CBI office amid Covid restrictions and pelted stones, infuriated over the arrest of their leader.
Hakim’s eldest daughter Priyadarshini had appealed to the supporters to maintain calm, as the law and order situation was cited by the CBI in a midnight hearing of the Calcutta High Court to challenge the bail he had secured.
Hakim was arrested along with his Trinamool colleagues Madan Mitra and Shovan Chatterjee in May, 2021. But, three years on, the TMC strongman upholds a clean image for his leader Mamata.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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