Influenced by Left, jr docs’ protest ended miserably: BJP
Times of India | 28 October 2024
Kolkata: Bengal leader of the opposition Suvendu Adhikari on Sunday criticised the junior doctors’ decision to meet CM Mamata Banerjee, claiming it led to the premature end of their agitation.
“The decision to meet the CM at her residence did not sit well with the public, nor with us. At the peak of the agitation, students had called for a march to Nabanna on Aug 27, but the junior doctors chose not to participate. That was their first mistake,” Adhikari stated.
Adhikari said that the junior doctors should have sought intervention from the governor, the Union health secretary, or the head of the Medical Council of India. “They did nothing of that sort. The Left and ultra-Left parties misguided them. You cannot have a successful agitation without the main opposition party. While they started well, it ended up miserably,” he added.
Bengal BJP president Sukanta Majumdar also weighed in, suggesting that the new faction of junior doctors was being influenced by Trinamool Congress. “They lost the battle in the semi-final. Their performance was like South Africa’s in cricket,” Majumdar remarked.
In response, the junior doctors reiterated their stance of maintaining distance from all political parties. They said that their demands focused on securing justice for the victim and exposing the poor state of health infrastructure in Bengal. “We don’t believe in terms like ‘semi-final’ and ‘final.’ Our goal was to ensure that such incidents are not repeated. It is evident that they (the BJP leaders) misunderstood the nature of the movement,” said Debashis Haldar, a participating junior doctor.
Majumdar continued to criticise the new faction, describing it as “an association of doctors affiliated with Trinamool,” and claimed they were acting under instructions from the party’s leaders.
Trinamool Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh partly agreed with Adhikari, acknowledging that “ultra-Left parties had taken control of the junior doctors’ agitation. However, he challenged BJP’s position, asking, “What exactly do they want? For the strike to continue and deprive people of treatment? If this incident had occurred in a BJP-ruled state, they would have forcibly ended the agitation. CM Banerjee ensured that democracy prevailed in Bengal. The issue was resolved through dialogue and sensitivity, not the brute force that they are accustomed to.”