Kolkata: West Bengal governor C V Ananda Bose flew to New Delhi after a delegation of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s state leaders called on him at the Raj Bhavan in Kolkata and urged him to take whatever measures were necessary in view of the outrage over the recent rape and murder of a young doctor and the response of the state’s Trinamool Congress government.
Union minister and the West Bengal BJP chief, Sukanta Majumdar, and the saffron party’s former chief in the state, Dilip Ghosh, led the delegation of the saffron party’s leaders to the Raj Bhavan. “We have requested the governor to protect the rights of the people of West Bengal and take whatever measures are necessary to lift the state out of this dire situation,” Majumdar said after meeting Bose.
Bose may have a meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah during his stay in New Delhi.
The BJP has been demanding the resignation of the TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee from the office of the state’s chief minister after the rape and murder of the postgraduate trainee doctor at the R G Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata triggered widespread protests. Like the protesting colleagues of the slain doctor, the BJP too alleged a cover-up attempt following the recovery of her body from the seminar room of the Department of Chest Medicine on the third floor of the RGKMCH. The rape and murder of the young doctor also renewed the focus on rampant corruption and irregularities at the hospital run by the government of West Bengal.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) and other leftist parties also took to the streets across the state, demanding that the chief minister should relinquish the home and health portfolios.
The BJP also demanded the imposition of President’s Rule in the state.
“We have provided the Governor with detailed information about the situation, which has deteriorated since the incident on August 9. We urge the Governor, as the custodian of the Constitution, to address these issues,” said Majumdar, who later led a sit-in demonstration to protest the way the Kolkata Police dealt with the rape and murder of the young doctor on August 9 and alleged atrocities by the cops during a protest march to the state secretariat on August 27.
Majumdar also criticised Banerjee’s comment during a rally of her TMC’s student wing on Wednesday that if West Bengal were to be engulfed in flames, not only the neighbouring states such as Jharkhand, Odisha, and Assam but also distant Delhi would be affected.
Bose accused the TMC government of insulting the national flag and of using disproportionate force on the “peaceful protesters”, who wanted to march towards the state secretariat building on Tuesday to seek justice for the recent rape and murder of a young doctor.
The governor told ANI at the Raj Bhavan in the evening that he was watching the situation, which was “far from normal”, and made his inference.