Credit: X/ @humayunaitc
Kolkata: A fresh political firestorm gripped West Bengal on Tuesday as estranged TMC MLA Humayun Kabir doubled down on building a mosque modelled on the Babri Masjid in Murshidabad district and warned that NH-34 would be under "Muslim control" on December 6, escalating a clash the ruling party is scrambling to contain.
Kabir, the Beldanga MLA who has for months signalled revolt and recently declared his intention to float a new outfit, ratcheted up tension during a media interaction, accusing the Murshidabad administration of being an "RSS agent" and warning officials not to "play with fire" if they tried to stop his programme.
The Assembly elections in the state are due early next year.
"I said a year ago I will lay the foundation of the Babri Masjid in Beldanga. Why is your skin burning? Are you being run by the BJP?" he said, announcing that "NH-34 will remain under my control, under the control of the Muslims".
Significantly, the outburst came from a seasoned turncoat, who has switched political allegiance four times in the last 13 years -- crossing among the Congress, TMC and BJP, -- before returning to the Trinamool fold and now inching away again.
Accusing the TMC government of acting as "agents of the RSS", Kabir added, "I will not break peace, but if anyone disrupts a peaceful programme, I am ready to respond. Bring thousands of police and fire, if you can."
His remarks have triggered renewed questions about why the ruling party has not cracked down despite months of open defiance, particularly when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee herself is now stationed in Murshidabad.
The TMC moved quickly to distance itself from the comments of Kabir.
State minister and Bengal president of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind Siddiqullah Chowdhury warned that a "new emotional atmosphere" was being created to plunge Bengal into a "dangerous climate".
"I cannot match these dots," he said. "Someone has provoked him. I do not see how this benefits the Muslims."
TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee dismissed Kabir's political importance outright, saying: "People of West Bengal trust Mamata Banerjee. Who says what does not matter. He has no importance."
Yet the MLA's continuation in the party ranks, despite repeated show-cause notices earlier in the year, is being viewed as a lapse in political discipline at a sensitive pre-poll moment in a district with a delicate communal balance.
Posters announcing Kabir's plan to lay the "Babri Masjid foundation" on December 6 had appeared across Beldanga before being vandalised, worsening tension in an area that has seen repeated flashpoints, including clashes over the Waqf Amendment Bill earlier this year.
Speaking to PTI last week, Kabir reiterated, "Yes, I will lay the foundation stone. The masjid will be bigger and inspired by the original structure."
The TMC has repeatedly maintained that he is acting in a "personal capacity". Chief Whip Nirmal Ghosh earlier said the party was "not in touch with him" and did not endorse his actions.
The BJP accused the ruling party of quietly enabling the situation. State president Samik Bhattacharya charged, "The TMC is pushing Bengal towards chaos. These announcements are meant to provoke and polarise."
The CPI(M) termed the episode yet another example of TMC's "ideological fluidity".
"One person (Suvendu Adhikari) was in TMC till 2020; then joined BJP. Now he asks Hindus to unite and recite the Gita. Another (Kabir) was in BJP till 2019. He is now a TMC MLA accusing the administration of being an RSS agent and calling Muslims to unite all with the TMC flag behind him," CPI(M) leader Saikat Giri said.
With Kabir threatening a blockade of a key national highway, the TMC preparing for its own December 6 observance, and Murshidabad's demographics making it acutely sensitive to communal mobilisation, the district administration is bracing for a fraught weekend.
As campaigns sharpen and tensions thicken, a mosque shaped in the memory of Babri Masjid has unexpectedly become the newest flashpoint in Bengal's election-year battlefield, with the script now unfolding on the streets of Murshidabad, according to a political observer.