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Medics blame WB govt after talks fail to take place, say never sought CM's resignation
KOLKATA — In a dramatic turn of events, the proposed talks to resolve the RG Kar hospital impasse between agitating junior doctors and the Bengal government never took off on Thursday after protestors refused to enter the meeting venue following the state’s rejection of their demand to live telecast the meeting.
Disappointed at the talks not fructifying, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said she was “ready to relinquish her chair for the sake of the people” but wanted return of normalcy in state-run health care sector which remains crippled on account of the 'cease work' of the junior doctors persisting for over a month.
“I do not care for my chair and am ready to resign for the sake of the people,” she said, regretting her failure to get the protestors to the discussion table.
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, hoping that 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.
"I did my best, but I apologise to the people for failing to bring them to the negotiating table. There are instructions from outside, asking some of the junior doctors not to sit for negotiations,” she said at Nabanna, after the discussion efforts failed.
The protestors who reached the secretariat at around 5.25 pm, some 25 minutes past the scheduled time of commencement of the meeting, stayed put at the venue threshold for over two hours even as a high-strung battle of nerves ensued between the two sides with both staying firm on their respective stands.
Senior police officials at the venue, including DGP Rajeev Kumar, ADG (South Bengal) Supratim Sarkar and Chief Secretary Manoj Pant, were engaged in back-to-back discussions with the doctors but failed to convince them.
All this while, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was reportedly waiting at the venue to take part in the meeting.
“We had conveyed in our letter that live streaming would not be possible but had given our assurances that we would have the whole session recorded for documentation and posterity. The chief minister waited for them for the last hour and half. There should be a limit to such demands,” Pant said.
The top bureaucrat maintained that since the intention of fixing anomalies in the health sector is common to both sides, there shouldn’t be any conflict between them.
“The demand to hold live streaming for the whole formal meeting seems unreasonable. The norm is to have the outcome of such meetings live-streamed. We had allowed 30-32 members instead of 15 we previously wanted. We have the best intention to hold this meeting,” DGP Kumar said.
Sticking to their original demand, more than 30 medics, representing the 26 medical colleges of the state that are taking part in the stir, went to Nabanna.
The delegation refused to enter Nabanna Sabhaghar after completing entry formalities for all members who were granted access by the government stating they would need the state’s assurance of live streaming first.
Earlier, before heading from their sit-in spot outside Swasthya Bhavan, the health department headquarters, following the third and latest invite from the chief secretary, the protesters had stated they would not settle for anything less than a live stream of the talks, which had repeatedly been rejected by the government.
The doctors insisted on having a live stream of the proceedings of the proposed meeting on the ground that they “have nothing to hide”.
“If the CM can hold her administrative meetings in districts on live TV and if Supreme Court proceedings can be telecast live, we see no reason why the same can’t happen here,” Aniket Mahato, a protesting junior doctor had said.
The agitating junior doctors on Thursday blamed the West Bengal administration for its rigidness in not allowing live streaming of the meeting to resolve the RG Kar stalemate and asserted that they never sought the resignation of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, as offered by her.
Dubbing Banerjee's remarks blaming the medics for the impasse as unfortunate, the doctors said their 'cease work' and agitation would continue until their demands are met.
“The chief minister's remarks are unfortunate. We wanted the talks to take place. However, the state administration was adamant about not allowing live streaming of the meeting. Our demands are justified. We wanted live streaming for the transparency of the meeting,” one of the agitating doctors told reporters.
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— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) September 12, 2024
The agitators refused to hold talks with the West Bengal government unless their demand for live streaming of the meeting was met.
The talks were scheduled for 5 pm in the presence of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, as demanded by the protesters.
The CM waited for more than two hours to meet the agitating junior doctors. However, the meeting did not take place as scheduled.
“We had never asked for her resignation and are neither here to press for it. We are here with our demands for the sake of justice for the murdered doctor of RG Kar Hospital. We wanted to resolve this issue. We are extremely unhappy that the talks did not take place. But we will still wait for a response from the administration,” the agitating doctor said.
Another medic said the protestors never sought the resignation of Banerjee.
“This is not our aim at all, our aim is justice (for the murdered RG Kar hospital doctor). Nowhere in our five demands have we demanded her resignation. Our demand is clear. We want those creating hurdles in the path of justice to be brought under the purview of law. Not even the parents of the victim have demanded her resignation,” she said.
Banerjee, expressing regret over the junior doctors' refusal to negotiate, urged them to return to work and asserted that she is even "ready to resign and leave the post for the sake of the people."
Claiming that despite her best efforts over the past three days to sit for talks with the protesting medics, Banerjee stated that the talks with the junior doctors cannot be live-streamed as demanded because the issue is sub-judice and before the Supreme Court.
“We have waited for three days but they did not come… I hope that the people understand that they do not want justice... they want the chair. I am ready to resign from my post for the sake of the people. I want justice for the victim, and for the people of the state,” Banerjee said.