Kolkata/Rejinagar:
Aam Janata Unnayan Party (AJUP) chief and Naoda MLA Humayun Kabir on Wednesday announced that he would quit politics and resign as a legislator after Durga Puja. He alleged that the Rejinagar Assembly bypoll held on Tuesday, in which his son Golam Nabi Azad was a candidate, was a farce.
Kabir thus conceded defeat before the results were declared. Votes are due to be counted on October 9 for the seat that Kabir vacated as he won from two constituencies in the Assembly polls held earlier this year.
Attacking the BJP-led state government, Kabir said he would not attend the Legislative Assembly as long as Suvendu Adhikari remained chief minister. He called it a vow to “sanyas” (renunciation).
“Residents of Rejinagar were not allowed to vote. RSS workers and police were given special badges. Those who roamed around wearing that badge looted votes. If I can’t protest against this injustice, what can I do through politics or being an MLA? I am saying this from my heart. After Durga Puja, I will hold a meeting and apologise to the people. I will end my political career,” said Kabir, who was with the then chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress before the April-May polls saw the BJP come to power. Durga Puja, which he set as a deadline for himself, runs from October 15 to 21 this year.
The TMC said his “communal” comments as a prominent Muslim leader helped the BJP’s Hindu-Muslim polarisation agenda. On Wednesday, Mamata Banerjee’s faction of the since-split TMC reacted to the announcement.
TMC (Mamata) MLA Kunal Ghosh said: “The time has come for Humayun Kabir to take the decision, if he wants to work for the advantage of BJP or to really oppose BJP from the core of his heart.”
Kabir was detained by police on polling day and released in the evening. After casting his vote, he alleged that police were interfering with the voting process at several booths and claimed that 64 people had been detained over the past two months.
“The police themselves are hijacking the voting process at many booths,” Kabir told news agency ANI.
The bypoll was necessitated after Kabir vacated Rejinagar. He won both Rejinagar and Nowda in the 2026 Assembly polls. In Rejinagar, he polled 1.23 lakh votes, defeating BJP’s Bapan Ghosh by 58,876 votes. When his son Azad filed his nomination on September 9, he said matching his father’s margin would be a challenge.
The BJP fielded Sakharav Sarkar, a former Murshidabad district unit president. The Mamata Banerjee-led TMC faction fielded Rabiul Alam Chowdhury.
Kabir has gone back on a resignation announcement before. In December 2025, after being suspended by the TMC, he said he would not resign from the Assembly, reversing an earlier announcement. He said voters in his constituency had asked him not to quit. He then floated the AJUP as the TMC acted against him over laying the foundation stone for a Babri-style mosque in Murshidabad.
