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From Mamata's cabinet to Babri-style mosque: turbulence, theatrics and defiance of Humayun Kabir

Kolkata, Dec 5 (PTI) Once a minister in Mamata Banerjee's first cabinet and today one of TMC's most controversial dissidents, MLA Humayun Kabir has again seized Bengal's political spotlight, this time by planning to lay the foundation of a "Babri Masjid-style" mosque on December 6, the anniversary of the shrine's demolition. For the TMC, his suspension on Thursday was less an act of discipline and more an inevitability. For Kabir, it was the cue he had been rehearsing for months. At 62, Kabir has emerged as perhaps the most unpredictable strand in Murshidabad's minority politics, a leader whose political arc reads like a decade-long relay between provocation and expulsion, apology and resurgence. His detractors in the TMC call it "the Humayun problem". His supporters prefer "the Humayun phenomenon". Kabir himself calls it destiny. What is undeniable is his flair for spectacle. Minutes after being suspended for the mosque plan, a move the TMC said risked inflaming communal tensions, Kabir declared he would resign as MLA, launch his own party on December 22, and go ahead with the programme "even if it means being arrested or killed". To a party long accustomed to his thunder-before-rain style, the defiance came as no surprise. "He thunders more than he rains," a senior TMC leader said, summing up a decade of friction in one line. The view in the leadership is equally blunt: Kabir's organisational footprint is largely confined to Bharatpur, his assembly seat, and its neighbouring Rejinagar, and his exit will pinch the party "in at most a seat or two". But Kabir seems intent on proving that assessment outdated. Born on January 3, 1963, Kabir entered public life through the youth Congress in early '90s and won Rejinagar in 2011 as Congress candidate. A year later, he switched to the TMC and was rewarded with a cabinet berth. Three years on, he was expelled for six years after publicly accusing Mamata Banerjee of trying to make her nephew Abhishek "king", a moment that sealed his reputation as a serial contrarian. If politics were a marathon, Kabir ran it like a steeplechase. He contested the 2016 Assembly polls as an Independent and lost. In 2018 he jumped to the BJP; in 2019 he contested and lost the Murshidabad Lok Sabha seat. When the six-year expulsion expired, he returned to the TMC in time for the 2021 polls, won Bharatpur, and reclaimed relevance in a district where minority votes often swing in unpredictable tides. But his second innings in the ruling party was even more combustible than the first. During the 2024 Lok Sabha campaign, in a district with a 70:30 Muslim-Hindu ratio, he claimed he could "throw Hindus into the Bhagirathi within two hours". The comment earned him national rebuke, including from the Prime Minister, and yet another showcause notice from the party. Months later, he was pulled up again, this time for saying Abhishek Banerjee should be made deputy CM. The apology that followed was characteristically reluctant. While the TMC's suspension has pushed Kabir to the margins, the move may have accelerated a path he was already carving out. His recent political choreography suggests not a leader blindsided by disciplinary action, but one preparing his next act. Over the past month, he has spoken of a new secular alliance, hinted at "positive conversations" with the CPI(M) and AIMIM, announced a helicopter tour across Murshidabad, Malda, Nadia and the two 24 Parganas, and publicly calculated campaign aviation costs as though reading from a manifesto. "How much does a helicopter cost?" he asked on a webcast. "Ten days during polls will cost around Rs 30 lakh. Why won't a party invest in its leader?" Political observers say the theatre is deliberate, a bid to signal ambition beyond the two constituencies where he is seen as truly influential. His rhetoric too has sharpened. "I will expose the chief minister and the TMC's double standards on secular politics. They have fooled minorities and have a tacit understanding with the RSS-BJP," he declared. The latest flashpoint, the proposed December 6 foundation of a "Babri Masjid-style" mosque, was, in many ways, the trigger TMC leaders feared most. In a district long regarded as the heart of minority politics in Bengal, the symbolism of the date and the design appears intentionally provocative. Party vice-president Jay Prakash Majumdar dismissed Kabir's rebellion with clinical understatement: "Why give importance to someone who has chosen another path?" But others admitted that the mosque plan intersected with the one line the leadership is unwilling to cross in the pre-poll year. For two decades, Kabir's name has been stitched into Murshidabad's political fabric. The question now is whether his latest rebellion will help him break out of the confines of district politics, or simply reaffirm them. As Bengal heads into a season where ambition often exceeds arithmetic, Kabir's political experiment will test whether turbulence, his trademark, can finally generate altitude, or whether he will once again thunder first and retreat later. For now, Kabir's politics resembles his favourite metaphor, a helicopter on standby, blades whirring, noise guaranteed, lift-off uncertain. Whether he truly soars, sputters midway, or merely circles noisily over Murshidabad will determine if this is his breakout flight or just another episode in the ever-expanding serial called "The Humayun Problem." PTI PNT NN

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