KOLKATA: It took a politicial masterstroke and a step never taken by any Bengal CM — going up to a mass agitation site and addressing the protesters directly — to pave the way for the first dialogue between the govt and the junior doctors since the brutal rape and murder of an RG Kar junior doctor on Aug 9.
Mamata Banerjee‘s “final effort” to break the deadlock — on which she spent a little less than half-an-hour at the protest site and addressed the protesters for less than 14 minutes — turned the protesters’ Thursday’s demand for “transparency” on its head as she spoke in full public view in front of hundreds of protesters and television cameras.
The message was direct and had three main points: “Please go back to work as patients are suffering; we will consider all your demands with sympathy but we need some time; and the govt will not act against a single doctor on cease-work.” It was punctuated with reminders that she had come to them “not as a CM but your Didi” and recalled her political past in which protests played a prominent role.
Read more: ‘This is my last attempt to resolve crisis’: West Bengal CM Mamata makes surprise visit to protest site of junior doctors
Banerjee reached the protest site in Salt Lake a little before 1pm. “I will take five minutes. I salute your stir. I understand the pain of this agitation; I too have risen out of student politics, have suffered a lot,” she began as some among the protesters continued with their “We want justice” chants. “You have been protesting and have suffered in this inclement weather. I could not sleep, I too suffered, felt your pain,” she said, referring to the overnight rain. “You have been on this agitation for over 32-34 days now, I too have spent sleepless nights,” she added before moving on to the protesters’ main demands.
“I will sympathetically negotiate all your demands. But I need some time to study them. I don’t run a government alone; there is the chief secretary, the home secretary, the director-general of police,” she said. “But every one guilty will be punished and we, too, want justice for Tilottama. We request the CBI to fast-track the probe so that we can have justice in three months,” Banerjee added, before repeating: “I appeal to you to give me some time. Will consider all your demands if you keep your trust in me.”
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“You have suffered and your families are worried. But many patients are dying at state-run hospitals,” the Bengal CM told her “brothers and sisters” before explaining how the government had already started acting on their demands: “Work on infrastructure and development has started. The Rogi Kalyan Samitis at RG Kar and other hospitals will be disbanded and principals will head these bodies, which will also have senior and junior doctors, nurses, one public representative and one cop.”
Banerjee, dissociating herself from the section of health department officials and doctors against whom the larger medical community has been expressing its anger, said she had “no relation” with the guilty and “did not know them”. “All of them come through a process. The files finally come to me (for being signed). I will act according to my means against the guilty who have links with the murder and corruption. My only humble request is please talk to us and return to work,” she said before moving to her second key promise: “no action against junior doctors for the stir”.
Read more: ‘Willing to have discussion’: Doctors on Mamata Banerjee’s ‘last attempt’ to resolve crisis
“We are not the Uttar Pradesh Police. I am against any action against a single doctor. I know the work you do,” Banerjee said, referring to a recent incident in a government-run hospital where a patient died because senior doctors “could not change a catheter”.
“I have come here as a fellow soldier. I will act, just give me some time,” she pleaded, iterating that she was the CM of a state and belonged to a political party but she was there at the protest as “your Didi”. “I share your pain,” she said.
Banerjee then spoke of her protests and specified how she had fasted for 26 days during the Singur agitation. “The CPM government was there. Not a single person came to meet me. I cannot force you to withdraw your stir, I can just appeal,” she said, adding: “My coming here does not diminish my stature, it increases my stature.”
Banerjee left the site around 1.30pm, reminding the protesters that it was her “final effort” that — ultimately — paid off, bringing them to the dialogue table at her Kalighat home.
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