Didi must heed the warning

The resignation from Rajya Sabha membership by Trinamool Congress (TMC)Jawhar Sircar should be seen as a warning to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over the volcano churning below the surface in the party. Sircar, a former civil servant, and an extremely distinguished writer, is no Suvendu Adhikari pining to jump out of a ship on fire. In his letter to the CM, he has sounded the warning that the State is in imminent danger to fall in the lap of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as most people see the delay in suspension of RG Kar Medical College Hospital Director Subir Ghosh as 'too little, too late' an action.

Sircar has clarified that he was not quitting the party and views the month-long protests not merely against murder-rape of a female doctor, but also an expression of disgust against the deep rot in system in West Bengal. Sircar is categorical about the steps the state government needed to take from the day the rape-murder exploded into the headlines and triggered the 'claiming our night' agitation by the doctors who occupied the street for days without end. He had even alerted the CM as early as August 13 asking her to suspend Dr. Ghosh, the alleged culprit whose incompetent, inefficient administration had led to the hospital turning into a den of corruption by louts and sycophants. He reveals in his letter that he had advised the CM to call the doctors and talk to them directly. However, the CM was found totally oblivious to such well-meaning advices and was found running charade of herself leading a procession demanding justice and then unnecessarily passing a bill in the Assembly to punish rapists.

He has even referred to the corruption cases against ministers like Partha Chatterjee who was arrested following unearthing of crores of rupees allegedly raised through bribes in teachers' recruitment. Sircar is no opportunist. He has even delineated that he was not for inciting an insurrection within the party but was moved by the hindsight of state voters banishing the Congress and the Marxists following their fall from the popular favour. He has even declared that his resignation was to stimulate introspection against dadagiri and syndicates out to ruin the party and to stall the march of communal and authoritarian forces to a state that has remained free from the virus.