Playing ‘victim card’ will only help BJP in West Bengal

Playing ‘victim card’ will only help BJP in West Bengal

Creating the image of a victim of the conspiracy and machination of the BJP is not going to help reclaim the situation for the West Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee.

FPJ BureauUpdated: Sunday, June 16, 2019, 07:08 PM IST
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Hundreds of thousands of Indian Trinamool Congress Party (TMC) supporters attend a mass meeting addressed by West Bengal chief minister and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata on July 21, 2016. The event was held to commemorate 13 activists killed by security forces on July 21, 1993 during a West Bengal Youth Congress rally demanding that the voter's identity card be made the sole requirement for voting. / AFP PHOTO / Dibyangshu SARKAR |

Creating the image of a victim of the conspiracy and machination of the BJP is not going to help reclaim the situation for the West Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee. The situation arising out of post-doctor-patient party clash simply reinforces the image of a beleaguered state waiting for a major surgical strike.

A clash took place between junior doctors and relatives of a patient at a state-run hospital around 11 pm on Monday night after the 75-year-old died due to alleged negligence. The scuffle between the doctors and patient party in the government-run hospitals has been more or less a regular affair. Those who have the experience of attending to the patients in the night would testify that they have to run behind the doctors to save their patients.

Even in some cases, doctors are found to be aggressors. A couple of years back two photojournalists gone to cover doctors’ agitation at Patna Medical College and Hospitals were brutally thrashed by the doctors. Their cameras were taken away. They had to treat by some private doctors at the initiative of the state administration.

In the latest clash that took place at N R S Medical College, in Kolkata, an intern was injured. In retaliation, the doctors disrupted the regular services at the hospital. They sat on a sit-in strike, demanding better security. On their part, the relatives of the patients alleged that Mohammed Shahid, a resident of Tangra, died around due to lack of care by the doctors. Shahid’s family members were also angry over a delay in handing over his body. Before the clash took place the family members of Shahid, had staged a protest alleging medical negligence on behalf of the doctor.

No rationale minded person would find fault with doctors demanding security. They must get it. A similar situation, relatives attacking the hospital, had erupted at CMRI in Kolkata. The government must ensure that doctors get protection but at the same time, it must guarantee that patients get proper medicare. While Shahid died, some other persons attending to their patients alleged, “My patient is not receiving any treatment for the last three days. I am not allowed to enter the hospital.”

The situation had not taken the worse turn if the senior BJP leader, Mukul Roy, had maintained restrained. Roy, who till a year back was the second in command of Mamata, blamed the Trinamool Congress government for not taking prompt action as the patient’s relative belonged to a Muslim community. Such remarks coming from a person like Mukul ought to be condemned. Just after the incident, Mamata Banerjee visited the hospital and asked the agitating junior doctors to get back to work. But some doctors indulged in the act of insulting her. Instead of politicising the issue, they should have argued and placed their views on her.

Being the chief minister, she should have maintained some peace. But it can be denied that the doctors demonstrated their lumpen nature. Being aggrieved does not mean that the doctors have the right to insult Mamata. The way the issued has rolled down, it obviously implies that these doctors were acting on behalf of the political parties inimical to her.

This belief is simply reinforced by the doctors’ protest acquiring a pan India character. We have seen in the past how it took very small time for the RSS and BJP to reach a piece of small information from one end of the country to the other. What exposes the deep conspiracy against Mamata, is the alacrity shown by some doctors’ organisations to spread out on all India basis within 24 hours.

Interestingly the issues raised by them are different from the matter highlighted by the Calcutta doctors. They also claim that these issues were pending for a long time but no effort was made by the government to solve them. In this backdrop, the question arises - why then choose this time to launch their protest? Their issues do not connect to Mamata. They could have chosen some other time to ventilate their grievances. As a matter of fact, they have joined hands with other forces to malign Mamata. It cannot be denied that they have been playing the role of pawns at the hands of BJP.

Mamata had offered to listen to their grievances but sternly asked them to go back to work. She might have been tough but was not playing with the lives of thousands of patients. To be tough is not a crime. But the doctors agitating in the direction of some hidden forces refused to listen to her. They met Governor Kesari Nath Tripathi, obviously with the intention to get his sympathy. No doubt this has been a shrewd move to politicise the issue.

Mamata Banerjee has accused the BJP and the CPM of engineering the strike and playing “Hindu-Muslim politics”. But she cannot escape the blame of aggravating the situation. What was the need for her saying that anybody who knows Bengali can live in Bengal? Probably she is not aware of the fact that most of the non-Bengalis residing in Bengal known better Bengali than others. It is intriguing why she intends to be the second Raj Thackeray? This remark of hers would alienate the non-Bengalis who have been sympathetic to her.

A full-blown political war has started over the assault on the doctor and the subsequent strike. The IMA also owes an explanation as to why instead of taking the doctors into confidence and saying it in clear words to refrain from anti-patients activities, they have encouraging them to resort to cease work. The seniors are aware that poor people of the country cannot go to Medanta and other super speciality hospitals.

-Arun Srivastava

The writer is a freelance journalist.Views are personal.

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