Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Sept 8: The first resignation from the Trinamool Congress ranks over the protest against the rape and murder of the trainee postgraduate doctor at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital came on Sunday, a month after the horrific incident on August 9, from the party’s Rajya Sabha member and former bureaucrat Jawahar Sircar who threatened to quit both the upper house and active politics expressing his anger over the handling of the incident by the Mamata Banerjee government.
In an open letter to the chief minister, Mr Sircar said he had never seen such spontaneous angst among the people and a total no-confidence in a government to protest against the “unchecked corruption and overbearing attitude of a favoured few” in running the administration.
Voicing his concern over the ruling TMC government’s “lack of decisive action” against corruption, he said “I must inform you that I have decided to resign from parliament and also from politics altogether.” He highlighted that after publicly urging the TMC to address corruption scandals prevailing in the party, he faced resistance from senior leaders.
Sircar’s decision came days after the Trinamool Congress leadership sent a stern message to him over his remarks regarding the corruption in the party, asking him to “step down honourably if he thinks he is not compatible with the party.” His letter threating to resign provide fresh ammunition to the BJP to launch a frontal attack on the TMC and Ms Banerjee.
The development marks the first major resignation from the Trinamool Congress which has been facing the heat of protest for almost a month after the horrific crime at the State-run hospital.
Demanding justice for the trainee doctor, Mr Sircar, who is also a retired IAS officer, in his letter to Ms Banerjee said, “The present spontaneous outpouring of public anger is against this unchecked overbearing attitude of the favoured few and the corrupt. In all my years, I have not seen such angst and total no-confidence against the government, even when it says something correct or factual.”
“I have suffered patiently for a month since the terrible incident at RG Kar Hospital and was hoping for your direct intervention with the agitating junior doctors, in the old style of Mamata Banerjee. It has not happened and whatever punitive steps the government is taking now are too little and quite late,” the letter read.
“I think normalcy may have been restored in this state much earlier, if the caucus of the corrupt doctors was smashed and those guilty of taking improper administrative actions punished immediately after the scandalous incident happened,” Sircar mentioned in his letter.
He further urged the Chief Minister to take strong action in connection to the rape and murder case and said, “Please do something to save the state. I shall go to Delhi soon and offer my resignation to the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha and will also disassociate myself totally from politics.”
The former Prasar Bharati CEO who was nominated to the Rajya Sabha three years ago said the “mainstream of the agitation is non-political and a spontaneous one and it is not correct to take a confrontational stand.” “They want no politics: they want justice and punishment. Let us analyse frankly and realise that the movement is as much for Abhaya as it is against the state government and the party. This calls for course correction immediately or else communal forces will capture this state,” Mr Sircar said.
Soon after his announcement, the BJP was quick to slam the Mamata Banerjee government over its handling of the rape and murder case RG Kar rape and murder case and attacked Banerjee for the rampant corruption in the TMC-run government.
“Jawahar Sircar, the obnoxious foul-mouthed TMC Rajya Sabha MP quits, citing rampant corruption in the TMC-run West Bengal Govt and mis-handling of the rape and murder case at the RG Kar Medical College & Hospital,” BJP IT Cell Head Amit Malviya wrote on X. He further demanded that Mamata Banerjee should step down from the position of Bengal Chief Minister, accusing her of allegedly destroying the evidence in the trainee doctor’s rape and murder case.
“Time for Mamata Banerjee to take cue and step down. She, along with Commissioner of Kolkata Police, have completely destroyed all evidence relating to the rape and murder of the young doctor,” he added.
Not only Mr Sircar, another Trinamool Congress MP Sukhendu Sekhar Roy had come out protesting against the incident. Mr Roy had to delete a post directed at Kolkata Police after he was served notice by the police and he approached Calcutta High Court.
Reacting to Mr Sircar’s letter, West Bengal BJP president Sukanta Majumdar said this was a clear indication that people who care for Bengal were not willing to support the failed leadership of Mamata Banerjee. “The people of West Bengal have lost faith in a Chief Minister who is pushing the State’s future into darkness. The Maa-Mati-Manush of Bengal are helpless under this misrule. The people demand to know, when will you resign, Honourable Chief Minister?” Mr Majumdar said on social media.