RG Kar issues: Crucial meeting between junior doctors and Bengal CM fixed for Monday amid hunger strike

Kolkata: A crucial meeting between West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the junior doctors protesting against the ghastly rape and murder of a lady junior doctor of R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital in Kolkata has been scheduled on Monday at 5 p.m.

The date and time of the meeting were fixed at a telephonic interaction between the representatives of the West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front (WBJDF), the umbrella body spearheading the movement and the Chief Minister, after she issued an appeal to the junior doctors to withdraw their fast-unto-death demonstration and come for discussions.

Chief Secretary Manoj Pant, accompanied by Home Secretary Nandini Chakraborty and Kolkata Police's Deputy Commissioner, Central division, Indira Mukherjee suddenly turned up at the dais of the hunger strike by seven junior doctors at Esplanade in central Kolkata. There, he contacted the Chief Minister on his mobile phone and she made her appeal to the protesting junior doctors over its speaker.

"I request you to withdraw the hunger strike. Please come to the discussions. Most of your demands have already been fulfilled. Please give me three to four months. I will arrange to conduct elections for different councils in all medical colleges & hospitals. Please withdraw the hunger strike," Banerjee said.

She said the common people feel helpless if they do not get medical services at the state-run hospitals. “I am in favour of humanity. I also want justice. But at the same time, the treatment of the common people will have to be ensured. So I am again requesting you to withdraw from the hunger strike and get back to work," she added.

Debasish Halder, one of the leading faces of the junior doctors’ movement and who interacted with the Chief Minister over the telephone, requested her to give a written assurance about the state government accepting their demands.

"A wrong message is going on that the junior doctors are protesting only in the demand of the immediate elections for different councils in the different medical colleges & hospitals," Halder was heard telling the Chief Minister.

Later Halder said that their protests on this issue will continue unless they get definite assurance of fulfillment of their demands.

Incidentally, on Friday evening, the WBJDF cautioned the state government that they will be forced to return to a total cease-work agitation from Tuesday unless their demands are not fulfilled by Monday.

"It seemed that the Chief Minister did not have a clear idea about what our ten-point demands are. The whole process of telephonic interaction does not seem to be quite sensitive. So now we will have to wait till Monday for the outcome of the meeting," another protesting junior doctor said.

Rumelika Kumar, one of the seven junior doctors on hunger strike, said that it seemed that the state government was not taking the hunger strike seriously. "The manner in which we were asked to return to duty was quite painful for us," she said.