Kumar Bahukhandi
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday September 12 said she was “ready to resign” for the “sake of people” and expressed regret over the junior doctors’ refusal to come for talks to resolve the impasse over the RG Kar rape-murder case. Banerjee, who waited for nearly two hours for the agitating doctors to come for the meeting, said she also wanted the victim to get justice, and apologised to the people of West Bengal for the continued deadlock. “We have tolerated a lot of canards and insults for the last 33 days,” she said at a press conference but assured the protesters that despite violating the Supreme Court directive by not resuming duties, she would not take action against them. In a dramatic turn of events, the proposed talks to resolve the RG Kar hospital impasse between agitating junior doctors and the West Bengal Government never took off on Thursday after protesters refused to enter the meeting venue following the State’s rejection of their demand to live telecast the meeting.
Expressing similar disappointment at the talks falling through and transferring responsibilities for it on the shoulders of the State administration, the agitating doctors said they would continue their agitation but remain open for talks .Banerjee, who waited for the medics to join the meeting for two hours and 10 minutes, later told reporters that the meeting couldn’t be live-streamed as demanded since the issue remains sub-judice before various courts including the Supreme Court. “What the Supreme Court can, we can’t. There are concrete directions from courts against making discussions on sub-judice matters public. We had placed three cameras to record meeting proceedings, which we could have shared with doctors with the apex court’s permission, ”Banerjee said after leaving Nabanna Sabhaghar, the meeting venue at the secretariat. The doctors, on their part, maintained that they had“ no ulterior motive for making that demand other than ensuring transparency”.
“We are disappointed at the CM talking about her chair since we never came here demanding her resignation. We still have faith in the administration and believe that our problems can be solved through discussions. We had set a concrete agenda for talks including justice for our colleague at RG Kar and security for doctors across the state.“ We would still want her presence at any place and time of her choice for the talks and continue our stir till that happens,” Arnab Mukhopadhyay, a junior doctor, said. Banerjee, though, said she sensed external political forces influencing a section of the agitating doctors to jeopardise the proposed meeting.“ We have been waiting for over two hours, the good sense would prevail on the junior doctors who are like brothers and sisters to me. I tried to hold talks with the doctors thrice in the past three days to end this stalemate.
