Kolkata rape-murder case: Is Abhishek Banerjee's silence a sign of dissatisfaction with TMC top brass?

Kolkata: Even as outrage over the rape and murder of a young doctor in a Kolkata hospital put the Trinamool Congress in a tight spot, Mamata Banerjee’s heir apparent and the party’s general secretary Abhishek Banerjee was so far conspicuously silent, fuelling speculation that he was not happy with the way the government was dealing with the situation.

Abhishek’s office withdrew itself from managing the media engagement of TMC over the past few days. The TMC supremo and the state’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday appointed a new four-member committee to oversee the party’s engagement with media. The committee will set the framework of the party’s day-to-day interaction with the media.

Abhishek led TMC’s campaign during the Lok Sabha elections this year, ensuring the victory of the party’s candidates in 29 of the 42 parliamentary constituencies in West Bengal. He also took a lead role for the party as Lok Sabha MP during the recent Budget session of Parliament.

But ever since the fiasco over the rape and murder of the young doctor at R G Kar Medical College and Hospital started, his silence was conspicuous. He broke his silence only once – after a gang of hooligans vandalised RGKMCH during the women’s ‘Reclaim the Night’ protest on August 14-15 to seek justice for the murdered doctor.

“The hooliganism and vandalism at RG Kar tonight have exceeded all acceptable limits,” Abhishek posted on X late at night. “As a public representative, I just spoke with @CPKolkata, urging him to ensure that every individual responsible for today’s violence is identified, held accountable, and made to face the law within the next 24 hours, regardless of their political affiliations.”

He also wrote that the demands of the protesting doctors were fair and justified. “This is the minimum they should expect from the government. Their safety and security must be prioritized.”

His comment was seen as a subtle criticism of the way the police responded to the crime and the state government dealt with the protest.

Some other voices within the ruling party also struck a discordant note, criticising either the authorities of the hospital run by the West Bengal government, or the city police.

The Kolkata Police on Sunday summoned Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, a Trinamool Congress member of the Rajya Sabha to its headquarters after he questioned the way the cops dealt with the rape and murder case and suggested that the Central Bureau of Investigation should arrest the city police commissioner. The ruling party also recently removed another leader, Shantanu Sen, a former member of the Lok Sabha, from the post of its spokesperson after he spoke about rampant irregularities and mismanagement at the RGKMCH.

With Abhishek emerging as the heir apparent of Mamata, the tussle between the ‘Old Guards’ versus ‘Young Turks’ within the TMC has been escalating, forcing the party supremo to relieve all leaders in the higher echelons of the organisation of their offices in February 2022. The move was initially perceived as the one intended to clip the wings of Abhishek, but he was later reinstated as the national general secretary of the party.

The clamour within the TMC for the retirement of veterans continued to grow louder. Abhishek, himself, publicly stated that the politicians, like people in all other professions, should retire after reaching a certain age, leaving space for new leaders. His opinion was amplified by Kunal Bose and other TMC leaders close to him. Mamata, however, countered it, emphatically stating that the senior leaders must be respected.

Abhishek last year undertook a 3500-km-long “Trinamool er Nabajowar Yatra” crisscrossing the state for 60 days, to blunt the anti-incumbency wave triggered by allegations of corruption against the party, which has been ruling the state since 2011.