Trinamool Congress MP and retired IAS officer Jawhar Sircar tendered his resignation on Thursday over West Bengal government’s lack of action in Kolkata trainee doctor rape and murder case. Following Sircar's resignation, the Trinamool Congress now has 12 members in Rajya Sabha.
Sources told PTI Rajya Sabha chairperson Jagdeep Dhankhar has accepted his resignation as Rajya Sabha member with immediate effect. Sircar had announced that he would quit politics altogether.
In a recent letter to Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee, Sircar questioned the state government’s inaction against corrupt officials and ministers and added it also led to current public outrage against the Trinamool Congress government. "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 said in the letter.
The retired IAS officer said, “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.”
A postgraduate trainee woman doctor was allegedly raped and murdered in the seminar hall of the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9, following which Sanjay Roy, a Kolkata Police civic volunteer was arrested. The gruesome crime resulted in nationwide protests by doctors and citizens.
The case, initially probed by Kolkata police was transferred to the CBI after the High Court found lapses in the latter’s probe. The Supreme Court also took suo motu cognisance of the case and formed a National Task Force to formulate an action plan for the safety of doctors.