News Analysis India

Tag: Firhad Hakim

  • Primary task of new TMC govt will be to put health system back on track: Firhad Hakim

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: Asserting that the TMC will storm back to power in West Bengal, senior party leader and outgoing urban development minister Firhad Hakim on Sunday said the primary task of the new government would be to put the state’s “derailed health system back on track”, amid the relentless surge in COVID-19 cases.

    He also said that the TMC, after coming to power, will have to shoulder greater responsibilities in the wake of the pandemic-induced crisis, and celebrations and victory rallies can take a back seat.

    “We will win the elections with two-thirds majority and form government in Bengal. Mamata Banerjee will be our chief minister for the third time. This will be the victory of common people. Our success will prompt us to shoulder bigger responsibilities,” he said.

    Hakim, who is also the chairman of Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s board of administrators, further said that he had been running from one hospital to another to take stock of the facilities available, and reach out to the patients with necessary aid.

    “Our primary job will be to bring the health system back on track. I believe that it will be a very difficult task. I am not a minister any more, but I have been running from one hospital to another and from one safe home to the other. I cannot shrug off my responsibilities,” the 62- year-old leader said.

    Asked if he was apprehensive about the poll results, Hakim said, “We have worked for the people and there lies the secret of our success. I am not tensed, as I am confident that the TMC will win the elections comfortably. People voted for us because they are happy with our performance. They have not voted on religious lines.”

    Hakim, after the sixth round of counting, is surging ahead of his nearest rival, BJP’s Awadh Kishore Gupta, by 33,071 votes in Kolkata Port constituency.

     

  • EC issues notice to Bengal minister Firhad Hakim for his speech allegedly inciting violence

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: The Election Commission on Tuesday issued a notice to senior Trinamool Congress leader and West Bengal minister Firhad Hakim for his speech allegedly inciting violence.

    He has been given 24 hours to explain his remarks.

    The BJP had recently moved the commission with a complaint alleging that Hakim had incited voters to carry out violence against the party.

    According to a portion of his speech made part of the notice, the senior TMC leader had asked people to hit BJP members.

    He also made remarks against a central police force deployed in the state.

    Besides citing provisions of the model code, the notice also referred to advisories issued by the EC to political parties on their conduct during polls.

    The campaigning for the West Bengal polls has ended and the last phase of voting will take place on April 29.

  • ‘Ghar ka ladka’ Firhad Hakim locked in triangular fight in Kolkata Port

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: The stage is set for a three- cornered contest in the Kolkata Port constituency, where minority votes could be a deciding factor, among the ruling TMC’s Firhad Hakim, Awadh Kishore Gupta of the BJP and the CPI(M)-Congress-ISF combine’s Mohammed Mukhtar.

    Over 40 per cent of the 2,35,854 electorate in the constituency are Hindi-speaking minority voters, and a majority of them swear by their “ghar ka ladka” (family member) Hakim as custodian.

    The area is dotted with huge banners in favour of the city’s outgoing mayor and lifelike cutouts of him along with Trinamool Congress flags.

    “I am not an outsider here. This is my home. I come here regularly unlike other MLAs who visit their constituencies only when the elections approach. ‘Kuch bhi problem ho main hoo na. Ghumao number aur Bobby Hakim is there; Sab ke paas mera number hai (Any problem here, and I am there. Everybody has my number. I am a ring away,” Hakim, 62, told PTI.

    The two-time MLA and urban development minister, who has been campaigning in the constituency for weeks, listed 24 major developmental works, including setting up a government college for women in Ekbalpore and an English-medium school, a logistics hub at Garden Reach and facilitating vocational training for the youth.

    “Bobby bhai has done everything that others could not do for several decades. He is like a family member,” said 73-year-old Ismail Mukhtar, a resident of Ramnagar Lane Basti in Garden Reach area.

    First-time voter Ahmed Hossain from Dhankheti said Hakim is like a hero for them.

    “Basic amenities have improved a lot under his watch. We now have schools for boys and girls with good infrastructure,” Hossain said.

    The BJP’s Awadh Kishore Gupta, however, said there are issues regarding sanitation and a culture of extortion in the area is rampant.

    “What about the sanitation problem and the existing syndicate raj here. People share common bathrooms. Implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana is not seen here. Mr Hakim has totally forgotten about these issues,” Gupta, 68, told PTI.

    Sources in the saffron party said that Gupta, a businessman, was fielded as the BJP candidate for the second time from the seat following the arrest of Rakesh Singh in a narcotics case.

    In the 2016 assembly elections, Gupta had finished third from the Kolkata Port constituency with 11,700 votes, while Hakim bagged over 73,000 votes.

    Singh, who had contested on a Congress ticket and later switched over to the BJP, managed over 46,000 votes five years ago.

    The TMC had emerged victorious in the seat in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, too, with its candidate Mala Roy polling over 82,000 votes, followed by BJP’s Chandra Kumar Bose.

    The nominee of the CPI(M)-Congress-ISF combine, Mohammed Mukhtar, 52, exuded confidence that people of the locality are looking for a change and he was their “choice”.

    Kolkata Port goes to polls on Monday in the seventh phase.

  • TMC’s Firhad Hakim claims he is being targeted by opposition to further ‘politics of polarisation’

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: Firhad Hakim, considered to be Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee’s trusted political lieutenant charged the BJP with targeting his religious identity in a bid to further its politics of polarisation and lambasted the saffron party for claiming he would turn the state into a “mini Pakistan”.

    He asserted that he was a nationalist and attempts to polarise politics was against the spirit of the Indian constitution.

    “I am a nationalist and I am a 100 per cent Indian,” Hakim told PTI in an interview.

    “I will die an Indian and my grave will be on this soil. However, for the sake of polarisation they (BJP) label a person as a Muslim or as a Pakistani. This is against (spirit of ) the Constitution, against the pride and ethics of India,” Hakim, nicknamed `Bobby by his father after Australian cricketer Bobby Simpson, said.

    The 62-year politician also said the BJPs face in Bengals election has been that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah in a “joint partnership”, and charged that the party lacked any visible agenda for the elections and instead focussed on personal attacks on Mamata Banerjee and other TMC leaders.

    “The BJP is being run by Modi and Shah through a joint partnership. They have brought down elections to a new low by attacking Mamatadi and other leaders of our party personally. Only personal attacks cannot be politics. Where is their (BJP’s) agenda for West Bengal?,” he said.

    Unwinding at his Chetla residence after hard days campaigning, Hakim, who has spent over 35 years in politics, also accused the BJP leadership of “using” agencies like CBI and Income Tax to “harass” their political opponents.

    “The central agencies are active during the elections at the behest of the BJP, he charged, adding that while he had the highest regards for agencies like CBI, ED, etc, doubts had now arisen.

    “Unfortunately, after Modi came to power, the BJP-led central government has started using the CBI, the I-T to harass the opposition not only in Bengal but all over the country for political reasons resulting in people are losing faith in these organisations,” Hakim alleged.

    He claimed several of his party colleagues have switched over to the BJP as they were “threatened and blackmailed” by the saffron party with threats of “framing them using the central agencies against them”.

    Hakim alleged that the BJP had tried a similar ploy with him too but he did not give in.

    There is a blackmail factor. The BJP also tried it on me but I did not succumbed to their pressure, he said, adding he knew the story behind many people who had defected to BJP from TMC.

    He also considers the rise of BJP in Bengal as more dangerous than the years of Left Front rule, as he feels the rise of the saffron party, will give rise to communalism and vitiate the secular ethos of the state.

    “The rise of BJP in Bengal is very dangerous. It is because BJP means communalism, retardation, unemployment.

    BJP’s rise is more dangerous than the Left rule,” Hakim said, alleging that the law and order in Uttar Pradesh and other states under the BJP-rule was far poorer than Bengals.

    Asked whether he was finding this year’s assembly elections tougher compared to the earlier ones Hakim said in an anguished tone: “Do you consider this as an election? The electoral battle we fought against the CPI(M) was political but now there is no politics.

    (Now) It’s only BJPs dirty strategy to spread canards and they stoop to any level. They are using the media, social networking platforms etc, to spread false propaganda .

    Explaining who are “bahiragata” (outsider), a term used by TMC’s as a poll plank, Hakim said “people who are frequenting the state and have zero knowledge about the culture of the Bengalis fall in that group”.

    “Bahiragata are those whom the BJP are bringing from other states for the elections. They have neither any idea about Bengali language nor of our culture. They are simply trying to inject communalism.

    “Some of the BJP men came to my constituency and said that Bobby Hakim is a Dhakaiya (a person Bangladesh’s capital city) it shows how they are trying polarisation in my area. They are living in a fool’s world, Hakim said. Religion cleans your soul and it must not be played out on the streets. The BJP is using Lord Ram politically.

    I can tell only them `Dekho o deewano aisa kaam na karo Ram ka naam badnam na karo (O people, dont misuse Lord Rams name).”

    Hakim, who is pitted against BJP’s Awad Kishor Gupta and Congress’ Mohammed Mukhtar, also expressed confidence of winning the elections and went on to claim “It will be a win for Mamata Banerjee with an absolute majority.On May 2, we are looking forward to a hat-trick. BJP’s politics of polarisation, communalism will not help them.”

  • TMC Files Complaint Against Dilip Ghosh With EC; Firhad Hakim Calls BJP Chief ‘nonsense’

    The elections in West Bengal continue to become murkier by the day with controversial remarks made by the political leaders from the ruling TMC and the BJP which is keen on snatching power off the hands of the ruling dispensation. Following Dilip Ghosh’s statement on the Cooch Behar firing incident, the TMC on Sunday demanded a ban on the BJP Chief’s political campaign in the state for the ongoing West Bengal elections. 

    In a complaint lodged with the Election Commission (EC), the ruling TMC has said that Ghosh justified such “murder” and threatened Bengal and its people of more such “murders” in the following words: “ar jodi barabakri kore Sitalkuchi dekheche ki hoche, jaegae jaegae Sitalkuchi hobe (people have seen what happened at Sitalkuchi, if anyone steps its boundary, the incident of Sitalkuchi will be repeated again and again).

    “CM Mamata Banerjee-led TMC asked the state election body to first initiate appropriate legal action, inlcuding criminal proceedings, against Dilip Ghosh for his “inflammatory and inciting” statement and openly threatening the electorate. Secondly, restrain Dilip Ghosh for campaigning for remaining phases.

  • TMC’s Firhad Hakim steps down as Kolkata Municipal Corporation Chairman ahead of Bengal polls

    By ANI
    KOLKATA: West Bengal Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Firhad Hakim on Monday stepped down as the Chairman of Kolkata Municipal Corporation.

    The resignation has come after the Election Commission of India (ECI) has restrained political appointees serving as board administrators of West Bengal municipal corporations, whose term has ended, from discharging their functions until the model code of conduct is in force.

    ECI in its order on Saturday said the decision had been taken to avoid a situation wherein critical functions of the urban local bodies were discharged, thereby affecting a level-playing field during the operation of the model code of conduct or had the potential of giving rise to apprehension in the minds of the voters about the fairness and impartiality of the election process.

    West Bengal is witnessing a high-voltage battle between the BJP and the TMC for the upcoming Assembly polls.

    Elections to the 294-member state Assembly will be held in eight phases starting from March 27 with the final round of voting taking place on April 29. The counting of votes will take place on May 2.