Mayor Firhad Hakim found to his dismay on Thursday that the “no waterlogging” reports prepared by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) following a sharp shower in the afternoon were not true.

On Friday, Hakim said his phone was flooded with messages from KMC officials saying there were no reports of waterlogging anywhere in the city after Thursday’s rain. But the reality was different.

The mayor’s comments during the weekly “Talk to Mayor” phone-in programme, expressing dismay over the performance of the KMC, prompted the mayoral council member in charge of drainage, Tarak Singh, to offer to resign during a conversation with The Telegraph.

Kidderpore was among the places where the mayor said he was told there was no waterlogging.

Hakim had to go to his aunt’s place in Kidderpore. The house was inundated as water from the road entered the premises.

There was bereavement in the family and the body had to be raised above the ground as the floor was flooded.

Hakim spoke his mind during the phone-in programme after a resident complained about waterlogging in his neighbourhood.

“They (KMC officials) said there was no waterlogging in Kidderpore. I went to my aunt’s place. The house was inundated. I had to wade through water,” he said.

“This place has not been included in the network of Nawab Ali Park (drainage pumping station),” Hakim said, trying to explain why the area was waterlogged. He said that only half of all places that should have been connected to the drainage pumping station had actually been connected so far.

Hakim said mayoral council member Singh sends him reports of “no waterlogging” every day. He did not specify whether Singh sent him such reports on Thursday, too.

Singh told this newspaper he would put in his papers on Saturday. “Since he (the mayor) has expressed lack of trust in me, I will resign on Saturday,” he said.

“It rained 79mm between 1pm and 4pm on Thursday. The lock gate was closed (owing to high tide in the Hooghly) between 11.45am and 4.50pm. Yet water drained out by 7.15pm.”

The Telegraph was present in the room where Hakim took calls from Kolkatans.

Several other parts of the city were also waterlogged after Thursday afternoon’s rain. This newspaper found Shakespeare Sarani, Chowringhee Road, Birla Planetarium and Camac Street waterlogged in the afternoon.

Hakim, however, defended the engineers a little later. “They are the ones who do all the hard work. I have to shout at times to keep pressure on them,” he said.

Earlier in the phone-in programme, answering another call, Hakim said in the government everyone was busy passing the buck.

The mayor made the comments after a man from Dakshin Behala Road complained that the road near his house was waterlogged. The caller, who had also called on August 11 with the same complaint, said no civic engineer visited the place to inspect the problem though he was promised by the mayor that KMC engineers would do so.

When an official tried to tell the mayor that records showed that the complainant was called, the mayor stopped him. “You are only telling me that we called him. What will happen by only calling? No one even went there,” he said.

Hakim apologised to the complainant. After he disconnecting the call, he said: “This is the problem with the government. Everyone wants to pass the football to another person.... If the ball doesn’t reach the goal, then work is not done.”