Second innings: Hakim to take oath as Mayor on Dec 27

KOLKATA: Firhad Hakim is likely to start his second innings as the Mayor of Kolkata next week. He is likely to take the oath on December 27. He became the leader of the House on Thursday. Atin Ghosh will work as his deputy. Mala Roy, party's MP, will be the chairperson of KMC. Hakim, who was an MLA from Alipore in 2009, became the Mayor in 2018 after Sovan Chatterjee resigned as the Mayor. The term of the civic board came to an end in 2020 but an election could not be held because of Covid-19 pandemic.

After becoming the leader of the House, Hakim said: "I will follow the instruction of Mamata Banerjee, who is the leader of TMC. I am a trusted TMC worker and will follow her instructions," he said adding "it will be a civic board where the old and new have been given equal importance. We will work as a family and a team," he maintained.

Atin Ghosh, who has become the deputy leader of the House, and will take oath as Deputy Mayor. He welcomed Mamata Banerjee's decision to review the performance of the councilors every six months. "It will force all the councilors to work. People have voted for us to work and not to spend five years casually," he said.

The first Mayor of KMC with the mayor-in-council system was Kamal Basu (1985 to 1990). He was an alderman. He had faced unprecedented opposition from Congress, which had 70 seats in 141 strong civic board. The Left Front had set up the board with the support of Left Front backed independent councilor Dr KP Ghosh. Two BJP councilors, Shyamsundar Gupta and Shantilal Jain, did not take part in the voting to form the civic board.

Prasanta Chatterjee was the only Mayor, who had completed two full terms. He became the Mayor in 1990 and again in 1995. He was defeated in 2000 by Swapan Sammadar, now a Trinamool MIC. Chatterjee later became a Rajya Sabha member of CPI(M).

Subrata Mukherjee was the Mayor from 2000-05. During his tenure, the property tax waiver scheme was introduced for the first time in the state.

Bikas Bhattacharya of CPI(M) was the Mayor from 2005 to 2010. In 2010, TMC took over from the LF and nominated Sovan Chatterjee as the Mayor. Chatterjee was elected again in 2015. But in 2018, he resigned as the Mayor and MLA post and finally left TMC.