Who is Firhad Hakim? Know Kolkata's New Mayor Age, Education, Family and Other Details

New Delhi, Dec 23: Firhad Hakim has been made Kolkata Mayor again after Trinamool Congress swept the Kolkata Municipal Corporation. After a meeting with the newly-elected councillors of the civic body, the party named him as the next mayor on Thursday.

Who is Firhad Hakim?
After foraying into politics as a councillor in the 1990s for the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, he entered the state assembly in 2009 by defeating Communist Party candidate Kaustav Chatterjee in the by-poll in the Alipore constituency.

Two years later, Hakim won from the Kolkata Port constituency by defeating his nearest rival Moinuddin Shams of the All India Forward Bloc by a margin of 25,033 votes. He was made the Minister of Urban Development and Municipal Affairs in the first Mamata Banerjee cabinet.

In the 2016 elections, Hakim defeated his nearest rival, Rakesh Singh of the Left Front-Indian National Congress alliance.

Age: 61
Education: Commerce Degree from Heramba Chandra College
Family: Wife Ismat Hakim and daughters - Priyadarshini, Shabba and Afsha

The TMC government passed the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (Second Amendment) Bill, 2018 and this allowed a candidate who is not a member of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation to be appointed mayor of the city, provided they are elected to the same within a period of six months.

The same year Hakim was elected mayor and became the first Muslim since the independence of India to be elected mayor of Kolkata. In 2019, he contested ward No 82 of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and defeated his nearest rival Jiban Sen of the Bharatiya Janata Party by a margin of 13,987 votes.

Hakim was appointed as Chairman of Board of Administrators of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation in May 2020 and in March 2021 after the Election Commission of India (ECI) restrained political appointees serving as board administrators of West Bengal municipal corporations, ahead of the 2021 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election.

Controversies
In 2016, Hakim was accused of calling his constituency "mini-Pakistan" while speaking to a Pakistani newspaper Dawn. He denied the allegations.

During the 2021 assembly elections, a purported video of him abusing the Indian central forces had gone viral, but again he had denied the allegations.

In May 2021, the CBI had arrested him in connection with the Narada sting operation.