“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.

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?”

Click here to join The Indian Express on WhatsApp and get latest news and updates