Trinamool Congress MP Jawhar Sircar on Sunday said he is resigning from the Rajya Sabha over alleged corruption in the West Bengal government and to protest against the “faulty handling” of the case pertaining to the rape and murder of a junior doctor at a Kolkata hospital in August.
In a letter to Trinamool Congress chief and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Sircar said that he had decided to also quit politics.
The retired bureaucrat said that he will formally submit his resignation to the Rajya Sabha chairperson soon.
Sircar’s decision to resign comes in the backdrop of widespread protests against the raped and murdered of the 31-year-old junior doctor at Kolkata’s state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9.
The former Indian Administrative Service officer said that the protests were not just in support of the medic who was raped and murdered, but also against the state government and the ruling Trinamool Congress. “Let us analyse frankly and realise that the movement is as much for Abhaya [the name given to the victim by protestors] as it is against the state government and the party,” he said.
Sircar said that he maintained patience for a month since the incident because he was “hoping for your [Banerjee’s] direct intervention with the agitating junior doctors, in the old style of Mamata Banerjee”.
He added: “It [intervention] has not happened and whatever punitive steps that government is taking now are too little and quite late.”
Sircar also said that the Banerjee government needs to act against alleged corruption in the state.
“Believe me, the present spontaneous outpouring of public anger is against this unchecked overbearing attitude of the favoured few and the corrupt,” Sircar said. “In all my years, I have not seen such angst and total no-confidence against the government, even when it says something correct or factual.”
The 72-year-old said that his primary reason for joining politics was to carry out a “struggle against autocratic and communal politics” of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
He said that in 2022, a year after he joined the party, he had publicly spoken out against the alleged corruption by a former education minister of West Bengal, but he was “heckled by the senior leader in the party”.
Sircar said that he did not resign at the time because he was hoping that Banerjee would carry out her “public campaign against ‘cut money’ and corruption that you had started earlier”.
He said that he had been advised by his well-wishers at the time to remain an MP to continue the battle “against a regime that is the greatest-ever threat to Indian democracy and civil liberties”.
However, he said that he had become disillusioned by the alleged corruption in West Bengal and the “strong-arm tactics” of a section of leaders of the Trinamool Congress.
Sircar said that several elected panchayat and municipal leaders in the state having acquired large properties and “moving around in expensive vehicles” was hurting not only him, but the people of the state.
Responding to the resignation, Trinamool Congress leader Kunal Ghosh on Sunday said that while Sircar’s decision is respected, the party is focused on addressing public concerns about the Kolkata rape and murder case.
“In such a situation, as a soldier of the party, we have to try to explain to the people, we will follow the role of our soldier,” ANI quoted Ghosh as saying. “If Jawhar Sircar takes any decision, he is a very senior and wise person, he has different principles, our top leadership will consider it. We cannot say anything about this.”
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