The murder and rape of a young lady doctor in Kolkata at R G Kar Medical College, and the handling of it by the West Bengal government has evoked, perhaps one of the biggest challenges in Mamata Banerjee’s political life.
Due to the ongoing protests of doctors across the country and the stand taken by all the parties, the demand for Mamata Banerjee to resign from the post of Chief Minister is getting stronger. The clear proof of the uphill task Didi faces is that her personal intervention has not placated the protesters this time. One example is the CM hitting the streets in ‘protest’.
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Mamata alleged it to be a conspiracy of the Opposition and demanded that the accused be hanged Sunday. Mamata said that like in Bangladesh, attempts are made to topple her government here and said that she was not greedy for power and accused the CPM and BJP of politicising the incident.
Though Mamata has claimed that the Left and BJP were behind the attack, her biggest vote bank is at risk. Normally, Mamata Banerjee does not take to the streets to protest against any incident. However, she took to the streets on Friday evening demanding death sentence to the accused, giving it more importance.
After this incident, the role of the government and the police is being questioned. Spontaneous gatherings and demonstrations of women in about three hundred places in the state on the call of ‘Reclaim the Night’ has split the vote bank. There is a strong disintegration. Political analysts say that although there are no elections in the state at present, the opposition will capitalize on this issue and try to preserve it till the next assembly elections. The Mamata Banerjee government is being attacked from all sides.
BJP and CPM are aggressively targeting it, while Congress is also commenting against the Chief Minister. These include Rahul Gandhi and state Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary. The Chief Minister is a woman, besides her party has 11 women MPs. Yet it is a fact that after such an inhuman incident with a woman, the government has not been able to show the expected proactiveness in this matter. Mamata has become the most criticized CM for suspending the principal of the college and quickly re-appointing him in this case. The opposition, who are looking for issues against Mamata, have now raised this issue. Although the CBI is investigating the incident, their track record in West Bengal is not good either.
That is why Mamata is now joining the common people of the state and demanding death penalty for the culprits, say analysts. This is not the first time that the Mamata Banerjee government has been accused of trying to cover up such an incident. Within a year of coming to power, i.e. in 2012, a woman was gang-raped in a moving car in the posh area of Park Street in Kolkata. The victim had come forward and made this allegation publicly. But then Mamata had called it a ‘decorated case’. But because of this she had to be embarrassed. The very next year, a 20-year-old college student was gang-raped by eight men in Kamduni. After that, she was killed and the body was thrown into the fields. It is alleged that the investigation of the case was conducted in such a sloppy manner that the accused could get a minimal punishment. Last year, the Kamduni case came into the limelight when the Kolkata High Court pardoned the convict’s sentences. Hundreds of women took to the streets against that decision. Political analysts say that Mamata is successful every time in facing all such challenges and the political storm that rises against her. But this incident has brought the government under fire on the issue of its police, government transparency and women’s safety. According to analysts, there is more anger among the general public because the administration and the police tried to cover up the matter than the actual incident. Initially, no one came to know about the incident for nine hours. Initially, the family of the deceased was first told that their daughter was sick. After some time, the family was told over phone that their daughter had committed suicide. When the parents of the junior doctor reached the hospital, they were kept in a room for three hours, saying that the police action would continue. Instead of accepting the resignation of the principal, Sandeep Ghosh, he was appointed as the principal of the National Medical College in Kolkata. This decision added to the anger of the protesting students and junior doctors. On the other hand, the pressure from the opposition is steadily increasing on this issue. CPM and BJP have been aggressive against the government and the police since day one on this issue. On the same night as thousands of women took to the streets, CPM’s Youth and Students’ Union held separate protests at many places across the state including RG Kar Hospital.
