Calcutta mayor Firhad Hakim resigned on Friday afternoon, saying he was unable to perform his duties since the new regime assumed power in the state.

By Friday evening, the state government issued a notice to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) commissioner, asking why the civic body’s board should not be dissolved. The notice gave the KMC three days to respond.

Sources said the notice could be a precursor to the appointment of an administrator to run the city’s civic body.

The KMC commissioner could become the administrator, or it could be someone else.

When Hakim announced his resignation in the KMC conference room, behind him hung a banner of the Annapurna Yojana with glowing pictures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief minister Suvendu Adhikari.

Within a couple of hours of Hakim leaving his office, his nameplate was removed.

The city’s BJP councillors contested Hakim’s suggestion that a BJP-ruled state government made it difficult for him to work. Sajal Ghosh, the councillor from Ward 48 in central Calcutta, said Hakim should elaborate on the challenges that forced him to resign.

Ghosh also asked whether Hakim was forced to put in his papers “under pressure from Kalighat”, hinting at possible instructions from Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee.

“I do not want to hold onto the chair. I worked with authority as mayor and minister (of the urban development and municipal affairs department),” Hakim told the news conference.

He described his current condition as a mayor without any real power by using the Bengali adage “Dhal nei tarawal nei, Nidhiram Sardar”, which loosely translates to a soldier without arms.

Hakim said he had sought permission to resign from his party leader and had received her nod. In close quarters, he said he had been telling Mamata for quite some time that he wanted to quit as mayor. He said he wished to exit with “grace and honour”.

Some sources said Mamata had not taken well to Hakim’s insistence on resigning.

On Thursday, Bidhannagar’s Trinamool mayor Krishna Chakraborty resigned, citing “personal reasons” but also complained about not being able to work.

KMC officials said that with the mayor putting in his papers, the mayoral council would be dissolved.

Trinamool may again stake a claim to form a fresh mayoral council and propose the name of a new leader as mayor, but the person has to be elected on the floor of the civic House. Winning a floor test may not be easy for a party disintegrating further with every passing day.

It was a different story in 2021. Trinamool had won 138 of the 144 KMC wards. The BJP won three wards, the Left Front two and the Congress one. The dynamics have changed since.

The BJP councillors said Hakim could not explain the reason for his resignation. “Why is he unable to work? Is it because his borough chairpersons have resigned, that his accounts committee member has resigned, that his councillors are under arrest?” asked Ghosh, also the BJP MLA of Baranagar.

Hakim became the mayor of Calcutta in December 2018 after Sovan Chatterjee quit midway through his term. When the tenure of the board ended in May 2020, fresh elections could not be held because of the Covid pandemic.

Hakim was then appointed the chairperson of the board of administrators for two one-year terms. Fresh elections were held in 2021, and Hakim became the mayor again in December 2021.

Hakim’s resignation on Friday also raises doubts over a claim made by his fellow party councillor and KMC chairperson Mala Roy on Thursday. Based on a Calcutta High Court order, Roy said she would convene the monthly session of all councillors on June 19. The high court said that as the chairperson, she had the right to convene the meeting.

In his nearly eight-year tenure as Calcutta’s mayor, Hakim has had some successes but many failures.

His biggest failure would be the mushrooming of illegal constructions across the city.

Ghosh alleged on Friday that close to 200 buildings were sanctioned in haste ahead of the Bengal elections. Another BJP leader said many of these were illegal buildings.

Calcutta’s roads have been broken and not properly repaired in the past few years. It is hard to find a single road maintained by the KMC that does not have undulations or where the ride is not bumpy.

Waste segregation at source is another aspect where the Hakim-led board could have done better. The easy availability and use of banned single-use plastic would be another failure.

Hakim cited the construction of more than 30 semi-underground booster pumping stations during his tenure as a success story. The booster pumping stations are meant to increase water pressure so that potable water can reach the farthest corners of a locality.

Sources said the construction of the Kalighat skywalk could be counted as another success.