Matter is sub judice, certain protocols must be followed: CM
Times of India | 13 September 2024
Kolkata: Thursday’s developments followed the junior doctors’ bus journey to state secretariat Nabanna from their Swasthya Bhavan protest site following the government’s third invite for talks. The first invite came on Tuesday and the second came on Wednesday. Junior doctors had rejected both, citing a number of reasons ranging from who was sending them the invite to the number of doctors that were being invited.They first specified that they would be satisfied with an invite only from either the state chief secretary or the CM’s office and then said the delegation strength needed to be at least 30. Then they added the one clause that led to Thursday’s abortive attempt: live streaming of their proposed dialogue with the CM and other senior officials.
Banerjee explained why the government was against live-streaming: “The matter is sub judice, certain protocols must be followed. But we were ready to video-record the meet. Three cameras were set up. We could have handed over the recording to them after taking the Supreme Court’s permission. We could have also provided it to the court. We would have held a joint press conference if the meeting was positive. They could have spoken to the media if they were unhappy with our decisions.”
Junior doctors, however, stuck to the live-streaming demand before taking the bus back to their Swasthya Bhavan protest site. “Is asking for live-streaming to maintain transparency an ego issue? We wanted to discuss our five-point demand,” West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Forum representative Arnab Mukhopadhyay said. “This movement is a public movement and we want people to see the discussion. We are still hopeful and we want to talk to the government to end this impasse,” another junior doctor said.