Doctors reach Mamata Banerjee’s home after her surprise visit to protest site

A delegation of junior doctors, protesting over the rape and murder of a trainee doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, reached.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s residence on Saturday, hours after she made a surprise visit to their protest site and promised them to look into their demands.

Amid rain, the doctors arrived at Mamata Banerjee’s residence on a bus and were escorted inside. Earlier, the doctors had welcomed Mamata Banerjee’s surprise visit to the protest site outside Swasthya Bhavan, West Bengal’s health department headquarters, in Salt Lake, and were later asked by the Chief Minister to visit her residence for a meeting at 6 pm today.

While addressing the doctors protesting against last month’s rape and murder of a trainee doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital at the agitation site, Mamata Banerjee promised to look into their demands and that it was her “last attempt” to resolve the crisis.

She made the remarks as the junior doctors have been staging a sit-in outside Swasthya Bhavan since Tuesday with a host of demands, including better security at state-run hospitals and the removal of top officials over the trainee doctor’s rape and murder.

Urging the doctors to end their protest and return to work, Mamata Banerjee said, “I came to meet you as your ‘didi’ (elder sister), not as the Chief Minister. I assure you that I will study your demands and take action if someone is found guilty. This is my last attempt to resolve the crisis,” the Chief Minister said.

“It rained all night on Friday. The way you are sitting here, I am suffering. I have also not slept night after night for the last 34 days. Because if you are on the road, I also have to stay awake as a guard,” she added.

She said that in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) was used to dismantle similar protests.

“I will not take any action against you. This is not Uttar Pradesh. They had implemented ESMA and stopped all sorts of strikes and rallies. But be rest assured, I will not do anything of that sort. I am against taking any action against doctors. I know that you do noble work,” she said amid ‘we want justice’ chants.

“The seniors (doctors) need you. Think about my proposal. If I can come to this protest site to stand by you, I can also ensure justice and listen to your demands,” she added.

“I respect democratic movements. I am also a product of student movements and have been on hunger strike for 26 days during the Singur anti-land acquisition movement,” she further said.

Mamata Banerjee also announced that patient welfare committees of all state-run hospitals would be dissolved with immediate effect.

Following this, the doctors welcomed the visit of Mamata Banerjee at the protest site and said they were more than willing to hold talks with adequate representation and proper transparency.

“We take this as a welcome step towards our smooth discussion and collective clarity of our five-point demands for which we have been protesting peacefully for the last 35 days,” they said.

Mamata Banerjee’s surprise visit to the doctors’ agitation site came two days after she waited for two hours at the state secretariat, Nabanna, for a meeting with the agitating doctors to resolve the impasse over the RG Kar rape-murder case. Even as the doctors reached the state secretariat, the meeting did not happen after the state government refused the demand of the protesters to livestream it.

Mamata Banerjee had then said she was “ready to relinquish her chair for the sake of the people”.