BATTLING PUBLIC protests and Opposition attacks over the R G Kar junior doctor’s rape and murder last month, the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal came under fire from within on Sunday, as the party’s Rajya Sabha member and former Prasar Bharati CEO, Jawhar Sircar, announced his decision to resign, citing the “faulty handling of the most spontaneous public movement”.
In his letter to Banerjee, which he posted on X, Sircar also flagged the issue of corruption and the “increasing strong-arm tactics of a section of leaders” in the Trinamool Congress. He said he had “decided to resign from Parliament and also from politics altogether”.
Saying that “the present spontaneous outpouring of public anger” is against the “unchecked overbearing attitude of the favoured few and the corrupt”, Sircar wrote: “In all my years, I have not seen such angst and total no-confidence against the government, even when it says something correct or factual.”
“I have suffered patiently for a month since the terrible incident at R G Kar Hospital, and was hoping for your direct intervention with the agitating junior doctors, in the old style of Mamata Banerjee. It has not happened and whatever punitive steps that the government is taking now are too little and quite late. I think normalcy may have been restored in this state much earlier, if the caucus of the corrupt doctors was smashed and those guilty of taking improper administrative actions punished immediately after the scandalous incident happened,” he wrote.
“It is my belief that the mainstream of the agitation is non-political and a spontaneous one and it is not correct to take a confrontational stand, by labelling it political. Of course, the Opposition parties are trying to fish in troubled waters, but the mass of the youth and the common people who are out agitating on the streets every second day do not encourage them. They want no politics: they want justice and punishment. Let us analyse frankly and realise that the movement is as much for Abhaya as it is against the state government and the party. This calls for course correction immediately or else communal forces will capture this state,” he wrote.
Sircar wrote that in 2022, a year after he joined the TMC, he was “quite shocked” to see the “open evidence of corruption that the former education minister (Partha Chatterjee) had indulged in”.
“I made a public statement that corruption must be tackled by the party and government, but I was heckled by senior leaders in the party. I did not resign then as I had hoped that you would carry on your public campaign against ‘cut money’ and corruption that you had started a year earlier,” he wrote.
Saying that there is no party that does not have a “corrupt section”, Sircar said he was persuaded by well-wishers to continue as MP to “carry on the battle against a regime that is the greatest ever threat to Indian democracy and civil liberties”.
“Though I carried on my task in Parliament with fervour, I became increasingly disillusioned as the state government seemed quite unconcerned about corruption and the increasing strong-arm tactics of a section of leaders,” he wrote.
Saying that “after 41 years in the IAS”, he lived in a “small middle-class flat, next to a big slum” and drove “a very ordinary 9-year-old car”, the former bureaucrat said he was “amazed to see that several elected panchayat and municipal leaders have acquired big properties and move around in expensive vehicles.”
“It is also true that leaders in other parties and other states have amassed much more wealth. But West Bengal is unable to accept this extravagant corruption and domination. I know that the present Central regime thrives on the multi-billionaires that it has enriched, and not a day goes when I do not accuse it of dirty crony-capitalism. I just cannot accept some things, like corrupt officers (or doctors) getting prime and top postings,” he wrote.
While he expressed his gratitude to Banerjee “for the opportunity… to raise Bengal’s issues in Parliament for 3 years”, Sircar said he had “to say all this in writing as I have not had the opportunity to speak privately with you in several months”.
“The primary purpose of joining as an MP, without any direct involvement in party politics, was that it offered an excellent forum to carry on the struggle against the autocratic and communal politics of the BJP and its Prime Minister… My commitment to fight corruption, communalism and authoritarianism in the Centre and the States is simply non-negotiable,” he wrote.
Sircar said he would soon visit Delhi and offer his resignation to the Rajya Sabha chairperson and would “disassociate… totally from politics”.
In his post on X, Sircar said: “I am quitting as MP primarily because of WB government’s faulty handling of the most spontaneous public movement following the terrible rape-murder case at RG Kar Hospital. Quitting politics — to be with the people in their struggle for justice. My commitment to values unchanged.”
When contacted, TMC leader Kunal Ghosh said: “This is his personal decision. I cannot say why he has resigned. We agree with his letter… I can only say that we are soldiers of the Trinamool Congress and we are fighting against evil forces in this moment of crisis.”
PTI quoted Ghosh as saying that the party respects Sircar’s decision, and he was hopeful that the leadership would address the issues that were raised, and take strong, clear, and positive actions.
The Opposition, meanwhile, used Sircar’s letter to target the TMC. “I have always taken the politically opposite position of Sircar, but his resignation from Rajya Sabha is a major loss. TMC should realise…,” BJP’s Rajya Sabha member Samik Bhattacharya said.
BJP’s ‘co-incharge’ of West Bengal Amit Malviya said in a post on X: “Time for Mamata Banerjee to take cue and step down”.
“Only extortionist and corrupt people become TMC leaders,” said CPI(M) leader Sujan Chakraborty.
“Sircar is praising the people’s movement despite being a TMC MP. But the TMC cannot realise such things,” said Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.
A 1975-batch IAS officer, Sircar served as chief executive officer of Prasar Bharati from 2012 to 2016; he resigned before his term ended. He became a Rajya Sabha member in August 2021.
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