KOLKATA – India’s West Bengal cabinet minister Bobby Firhad Hakim found himself in the middle of another ‘controversy’ for reportedly telling a journalist that his constituency was a “mini-Pakistan’ in Kolkata.
India’s Bharatiya Janata Party took on the minister for his comments, Hakim denied his comments with the journalist who worked on a first person report of visiting Garden Reach, Hakim’s constituency which goes to polls between April 30 and May 5.
“I have not said anything about Pakistan. The journalist felt like it was her place… If the head of the government goes to Pakistan again and again, there’s no harm… But if a Muslim says so, then the reaction comes,” Hakim told local TV channel.
Calling it a narrowness of the mind, he said it was not criticism. “It is a sense of communalism. I will not react to this,” he said. On Saturday, the Janata Party targeted Hakim after the comments published. “This is unfortunate. Bobby Hakim was involved in several controversies even in the past, he is a close aide of (chief minister) Mamata Banerjee,” said Siddharth Nath Singh, BJP’s co-in charge of the West Bengal.
“We condemn this and urge the electorate not to give a single vote to Bobby Hakim,” he said while reacting on the comments. Last month, Hakim was at the centre of the flyover collapse tragedy in which around 20 people died in Kolkata. As the urban development minister, Hakim’s department was held responsible for the project being sanctioned to a construction company that turned out to be questionable.
