TMC MP targets doctors on strike: ‘You may go home or go about with your boyfriend, but if a patient dies… we won’t save you’
Arup Chakraborty, speaking at a rally in Bankura, warned the doctors that public anger could fall on them if their strike over the R G Kar rape-murder affects parents' lives.
“In the name of the movement, you may go home or go about with your boyfriend. If a patient dies because of your strike and public anger falls on you, we will not save you,” the MP said at a rally in West Bengal’s Bankura on Sunday.
Taking aim at the doctors’ strike following the rape and murder of a junior doctor at Kolkata’s R G Kar Medical College and Hospital earlier this month, TMC MP Arup Chakraborty said “we will not save you” if public anger falls on the doctors due to their strike.
“In the name of the movement, you may go home or go about with your boyfriend. If a patient dies because of your strike and public anger falls on you, we will not save you,” he said at a rally in West Bengal’s Bankura on Sunday.
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When reporters asked about the statement after he got off stage, he stuck to it. “Doctors are striking. In the name of a strike, if they go out and people don’t get treatment, naturally their anger will fall on them. We can’t save them,” he said.
On August 14, the protesting doctors were attacked by hundreds of miscreants who barged into R G Kar hospital, assaulted some protesters and police personnel, and vandalised the protest site and the ground floor of the emergency building.
Some TMC leaders have backed the protesters and called for stringent action against the perpetrators, but others have been quick to defend the Mamata Banerjee government.
TMC leader Bengal Udayan Guha has previously come out strongly against those criticising the Chief Minister in connection with the R G Kar incidents, saying: “Those raising fingers against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee – we will break their fingers.”
Kalyan Banerjee, a TMC MP, had said, “Some people think that just like in Bangladesh, in West Bengal also some people will sing and the Mamata Banerjee government will be toppled. That is not possible here. The Trinamool Congress will boycott the artists who are now singing, then what will they do?”
Atri Mitra is a Special Correspondent of The Indian Express with more than 20 years of experience in reporting from West Bengal, Bihar and the North-East. He has been covering administration and political news for more than ten years and has a keen interest in political development in West Bengal.
Atri holds a Master degree in Economics from Rabindrabharati University and Bachelor's degree from Calcutta University. He is also an alumnus of St. Xavier's, Kolkata and Ramakrishna Mission Asrama, Narendrapur.
He started his career with leading vernacular daily the Anandabazar Patrika, and worked there for more than fifteen years. He worked as Bihar correspondent for more than three years for Anandabazar Patrika. He covered the 2009 Lok Sabha election and 2010 assembly elections. He also worked with News18-Bangla and covered the Bihar Lok Sabha election in 2019. ... Read More