Kolkata Doctors After Talks Prove Non-Starter Again

Kolkata: The protesting junior doctors of Bengal have alleged that they had accepted all the conditions laid down by the state government — to the extent of scaling down their demands from live transmission of the meeting to accepting the minutes — but were turned down by the government at the last minute.

“We kept waiting in the rain, but we had to return without any solution and all the junior doctors were disheartened,” said Dr Aqeeb, who was part of the delegation that went to meet Ms Banerjee.

The meeting was scheduled yesterday after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee went to the protest site at the health secretariat and invited them to her home.

But their arrival was followed by another argument over live transmission of the proceedings. In between, the Chief Minister came and assured them that they would be given a copy of the video recording after the Supreme Court proceedings are over. She also invited them in for tea even if they refused to take part in the discussions.

The doctors refused, raising demands for justice. Post-9 pm, when they finally were on board with the idea of having minutes of the meeting, signed by both sides, they were told it was too late.

By then, the news had come about the arrest of former RG Kar hospital Principal Sandip Ghosh and a local police officer, Abhijit Mondal. The Central Bureau of investigation had arrested them for alleged evidence tampering in connection with the rape-murder case of a young doctor that is at the heart of the protest.  

With the doctors failing to reach a decision, the Chief Minister went inside her two-room accommodation, saying since the doctors would not come in for discussions or tea, she would continue with her work.

“The junior doctors said that we would have tea only if justice will be delivered. We later gave up on the demand of recording as well and just asked for the minutes of the meeting, but we were told that there had been a delay and nothing could be done now,” said Dr Aqeeb, who was part of the delegation that went to meet Ms Banerjee.

The BJP alleged that Ms Banerjee called off the meeting with the doctors because she was “demoralised” by the arrests. “She apprehends that the next person in the queue may be Vineet Goyal. That’s why CM asked Chandrima Bhattacharya and Manoj Pant to call off the Meeting,” posted the BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

On September 13, the junior doctors had criticised the Chief Minister for rejecting their request to live telecast the meeting and left from outside the state secretariat where they had gone to meet her. They argued that their request was reasonable, since parliamentary discussions and many administrative meetings are broadcast live.

They also expressed frustration at being asked to leave their phones and other electronic gadgets outside the meeting hall.

The government has maintained that the proceedings cannot be telecast live since the matter is pending in the Supreme Court — an argument that has not been accepted by the doctors.