Armed central paramilitary personnel landed at the Calcutta mayor’s house in Chetla around 12.45am on Tuesday to tell him that if there was a “problem” on polling day, “mushkil ho jayega (there will be trouble)”.
Firhad Hakim was told that Opposition workers should not be harassed. “Aapka ladka log dusre party ka logo ko padeshan na kare (Your boys should not harass
Opposition party workers),” Hakim quoted an officer as telling him.
According to Hakim, the officer’s last sentence before leaving was chilling. “Problem hoga toh mushkil ho jayega (There will be trouble if there is a problem).”
Hakim, also the state’s urban development and municipal affairs minister, said he had never had police at his doorstep at the dead of the night in his long
political career, “not even during Left rule”.
“About 30 uniformed central force personnel had come. They approached the security, who came and informed me that the forces wanted to see me,” Hakim told The Telegraph on Tuesday evening.
“They knew they were visiting the mayor’s home. One of them asked me, ‘Aap mayor saab ho (Are you the mayor)?’” he said.
“One of them said there should not be any trouble on Wednesday. I said my neighbourhood was a peaceful place and there had never been any trouble during an election. I told them there has not even been stone pelting in my area,” Hakim said.
“The central forces shot back, saying those in the Opposition should not face any problem. I pointed towards a BJP banner hanging near my home and said that if I wanted unnecessary trouble, I could have asked my party’s workers to tear it apart. We are not like that. We give space to the Opposition,” Hakim said.
Hakim stays in a part of Chetla in south Calcutta that is part of chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s Bhabanipur Assembly seat.
An armoured CRPF vehicle patrols Bhabanipur on Tuesday, on the eve of polling. Picture by Sanat Kr Sinha
Bhabanipur is the battle royal in this election, with the Trinamool chief pitted against her former party colleague and now principal Opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari.
Hakim was in charge of Mamata’s campaign in wards 74, 77 and 82, three of the eight wards of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation that make up Bhabanipur.
He is also seeking re-election from the neighbouring Kolkata Port constituency.
The conversation with the central forces lasted two or three minutes, Hakim said.
“All of this is being done under instructions from (Union home minister) Amit Shah. We have heard stories that the police used to land at people’s homes at night during the Naxalite period. It was a repeat last (Monday) night,” he said.
Mamata won the Bhabanipur seat by a margin of over 58,000 votes during a 2021 Assembly bypoll.
Hakim won from Kolkata Port by a margin of over 68,000 votes.
Hakim, however, chose not to lodge a formal complaint. “What is the point of lodging a complaint?” he said.
Calls to Randhir Kumar, the district election officer of Kolkata South, went unanswered on Tuesday evening.