TMC suspends MLA Humayun Kabir over his plan to build 'Babri Masjid' in Murshidabad
Kolkata/ Baharampur (PTI): West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress on Thursday suspended its Bharatpur MLA Humayun Kabir, who had triggered a storm with the proposal to build 'Babri Masjid' in Murshidabad district.
Kabir, who has hogged the limelight over the last few years with his controversial statements on various matters, including the party's internal affairs, had announced that the foundation stone of the proposed mosque would be laid at Beldanga on December 6.
Announcing his suspension, senior TMC leader Firhad Hakim said Kabir's conduct amounted to gross indiscipline at a time when the party was working to maintain peace and communal harmony in the state.
"Kabir was involved in communal politics, which the TMC is strictly against. TMC does not believe in communal politics. He will have no relation with the party from this moment. He is being suspended on the instructions of our top leadership," said Hakim, a senior minister in the Mamata Banerjee government.
When the suspension was announced, Kabir was present at the ground in Baharampur, where the CM is scheduled to address a rally later in the day.
Asked about his reaction, Kabir told reporters that the suspension was a "deliberate humiliation".
He said he would resign as an MLA and launch a new political outfit on December 22 in Murshidabad.
Kabir said his new outfit will contest 135 of the 294 seats in the assembly in next year's state elections.
"I will expose the chief minister and the TMC over their double standards on secular politics. TMC has been fooling minorities and has a tacit understanding with the RSS-BJP," he alleged.
"The December 6 programme will go ahead as planned. I will not cancel it. If the administration doesn't allow me to lay the foundation stone, then I will sit on a dharna and get arrested. I have full faith in the judiciary," he said.
Kabir, who keeps switching political parties and had been in the Congress and BJP earlier, claimed that lakhs of people would join the December 6 programme, which may block the all-important NH-12 that connects Kolkata in the south to Siliguri in the north.
State BJP president Samik Bhattacharya termed Kabir's suspension a "drama".
"Humayun Kabir has been making controversial remarks for a long time, yet the TMC never took any concrete action. They want to establish the rule of Babur in Bengal," he alleged.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
