By PTI
KOLKATA: Senior TMC leader Firhad Hakim is all set to become the city’s next Mayor and Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s performance will be reviewed every six moths.
Hakim was elected the leader of the newly-elected TMC councillors of its civic body on Thursday.
He will take oath as Mayor next week, officials said after the meeting of the elected TMC councillors.
Hakim, who holds the transport and housing portfolios in the Mamata Banerjee cabinet, will be the 39th mayor of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC).
He is the first mayor of the city from the Muslim community since Independence.
Hakim served in the post from December 2018 after Sovan Chatterjee’s abrupt exit and was in the post till May 2020.
He was appointed the civic body’s administrator after the earlier board’s term expired, and election to the civic body could not be held due to the pandemic.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said at the meeting that KMC’s performance will be reviewed every six months and action will be taken against those who are found to be lacking in their performance.
Hakim, who is considered as one of the trusted lieutanants of Mamata Banerjee, had won the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) poll from ward 82 and is an MLA from the Kolkata Port assembly seat.
“I want to thank Mamata Banerjee for giving me this opportunity to serve the people of Kolkata again. After taking oath as Mayor, I will work towards implementing the TMC manifesto,” he said.
South Kolkata Lok Sabha MP Mala Roy, who was re-elected as councillor from ward 88, was named the chairperson of KMC.
She was chairperson of the civic body in the earlier term as well.
Kashipur-Belgachia MLA Atin Ghosh, who became the councillor from ward 11, was re-elected the deputy mayor of the civic body.
All the names were announced by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at a meeting of the TMC here.
She also announced the names of 13 mayors-in-council.
In line with the party’s policy of empowerment of women in politics, the TMC supremo made women councillors chairmen in nine out of the city’s 16 boroughs.
The KMC, which is divided into 144 administrative wards, is grouped into 16 boroughs.
Banerjee said, “No one should think that we have won and we can sit idle now. There is no place for complacency and arrogance. That won’t be tolerated, everybody has to work diligently. KMC’s performance will be reviewed every six months and action will be taken against those who are found to be non-performers both by the party and the administration”.
She said TMC will not induct independents as it will be unjust for the leaders and workers of the respective wards.
She lauded the State Election Commission and police for conducting a peaceful election.
All the 134 newly-elected councillors of TMC were present in the meeting.
BJP has won only three wards, while the Left Front and Congress have bagged two each in the KMC election held on Sunday.
Three Independent candidates were among the winners of the city civic poll.
The results were declared on Tuesday.
Reacting to Hakim being the next mayor of Kolkata, the BJP wondered whether civic services will improve under him.
“The way the KMC election was held, we are hardly interested in who becomes mayor. But we wonder whether it will improve in any degree the civic services in future,” BJP leader Shamik Bhattacharya said.
Echoing him, CPI (M) leader Sujan Chakraborty said that polls hardly reflect the people’s mandate.
“The TMC may elect anybody as mayor or deputy mayor. But the way polls were conducted didn’t reflect the people’s mandate. The kind of violence that was unleashed and the way that votes were looted were unprecedented,” he added.
The TMC has been in power in KMC since 2010.
In the last KMC poll in 2015, the party had won 124 seats and the LF 13.
The BJP and the Congress had secured five and two seats respectively.
In the 145-year-old history of Kolkata Municipal Corporation, nationalist leaders like Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Bidhan Chandra Roy, also a former chief minister, graced the Mayor’s chair in pre-Independent India.
Hakim is the first Muslim Mayor since independence.
