TMC MP Jawhar Sircar announces resignation over Kolkata rape-murder

Trinamool Congress (TMC) Rajya Sabha MP Jawhar Sircar on Sunday (September 8) resigned his parliamentary post and quit politics altogether as a form of protest against the Bengal government's handling of the rape and murder of a junior doctor at a Kolkata hospital last month that has created a lot of unrest in the state.

In a letter addressed to Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, Sircar lamented that he had become "increasingly dissullioned as the state government seemed unconcerned about the corruption and the increasing strong-arm tactics of a section of leaders in the TMC".

“I just cannot accept some things, like corrupt officers (or doctors) getting prime and top postings,” Sircar wrote. Sircar, a retired IAS officer, claimed that corruption by a section of leaders of his party and lack of action against them was one of the reasons for his decision.

"I have suffered patiently for a month since the terrible incident at RG Kar Hospital, and was hoping for your direct intervention with the agitating junior doctors, in the old style of Mamata Banerjee. It has not happened and whatever punitive steps that government is taking now are too little and quite late," he said in the letter.

"I think normalcy may have been restored in this state much earlier, if the caucus of the corrupt doctors was smashed and those guilty of taking improper administrative actions punished immediately after the scandalous incident happened," he added.

No confidence in government

Pointing out that  the current spontaneous outpouring of anger against the government  is against the "unchecked overbearing attitude of the favoured few and the corrupt" in his own party.

"In all my years I have not seen so much angst and total no-confidence against the government,even when it says something correct or factual," he added. He believed that the government has completely lost the trust of the people.

The MP’s resignation comes in the wake of of a wave of protests against the brutal rape and murder of a post-graduate junior doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College Hospital last month on August 9. The protests are not dying down.

At the end of the letter, he warned that if TMC fails to correct its course, "communal forces will capture the state". 

However, Sircar also expressed his gratitude for the opportunity given to him to raise Bengal's issues in Parliament for three years. But, he said he had no desire to continue as MP at all. "My commitment to fight corruption, communalism, and authoritarianism in the Centre and the States is simply non-negotiable," he stressed.