Humayun Kabir mix-up: TMC MLA fields 200 calls over suspended namesake's mosque appeal

Kolkata: The politics of West Bengal brought up a quirky case of mistaken identity as one Humayun Kabir laid the foundation of a Babri Masjid-style mosque in Murshidabad, while another, 200 km away in Paschim Medinipore's Debra, fielded nearly 200 donation calls meant for his suspended namesake.

When the suspended Trinamool Congress MLA appealed for donations for the proposed mosque at Beldanga in Murshidabad's Rejinagar area on Saturday, he scarcely imagined the ripples would travel across districts and repeatedly land on the phone of his unsuspecting party colleague, the Debra MLA.

For the past two days, the Debra legislator's mobile phone has been ringing relentlessly with calls from strangers from various states, most of them making a single request: a QR code to donate for the proposed mosque.

"For last one week, I really had a tough time attending continuous calls and messages meant for Humayun Kabir of Murshidabad. Its a case of mistaken identity," the Debra MLA and former IPS officer, told PTI.

"Nearly all the callers want to transfer money for the Murshidabad mosque. I have to keep explaining that I am not that Humayun Kabir of Murshidabad. I am a different person, though we were both TMC MLAs, till the time he was suspended last week," he said.

The calls, he said, have poured in from Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Mumbai, Haryana, Rajasthan and even as far as foreign countries.

"I usually pick up all unknown numbers. In the last two days, I must have taken close to 200 such calls," Debra MLA Kabir, who had quit his job as a decorated police officer, to join politics in 2021, said.

While insisting that he was not annoyed, the TMC MLA admitted that the situation had turned awkward.

"I politely ask them to find the correct number and contact the other Humayun Kabir directly," the former cabinet minister added.

The Debra MLA also took to Facebook to clarify his position, later posting a message that read, "Temples and mosques are not arenas for political wrestling, but spaces for prayer and worship." Meanwhile, at Beldanga, the donation drive appears to have gathered enormous momentum.

According to associates of the suspended Bharatpur MLA, 11 large stainless steel donation boxes were placed at the venue on Saturday. By Sunday evening, four boxes and one sack full of cash were opened for counting, yielding Rs 37.33 lakh in cash alone.

Online donations through QR codes have touched Rs 93 lakh so far, they claimed. The remaining seven sealed donation boxes are scheduled to be opened for counting on Monday afternoon. Around 30 people who carried out Sunday's counting are continuing the exercise.

The suspended MLA has claimed that the total collection for the mosque construction could eventually cross several crore rupees.

Even as funds pile up around the proposed mosque in Murshidabad, the other Humayun Kabir in Debra is busy fielding and forwarding misplaced donation calls, an accidental and comic subplot in Bengal's political theatre.