Mamata Banerjee's handling of the doctors’ strike betrays her anxiety in the aftermath of electoral reverses at the hands of the BJP.
It couldn’t have been easy for an imperious Mamata Banerjee to offer the “unconditional apology” agitating doctors in West Bengal were demanding to return to work. But as the medics’ strike in the state spilled over to the second week, and doctors across the country ceased work in solidarity, the chief minister thought it prudent to tone down her instinctive belligerence and end the crisis.
Not before she’d betrayed a sense of insecurity, which has been palpable in her knee-jerk reactions to the needling, probing political gambits of a triumphant BJP. It’s as much real as imagined, and has been playing out ever since the Lok Sabha election verdict, in which the BJP emerged as the primary challenger to the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal, winning a 40 per cent vote share and 18 of the 42 seats—just four less than the TMC. Mamata is now seeing a BJP conspiracy in everything— from her party’s electoral reverses to the doctors’ strike, triggered by the June 10 thrashing of their colleagues at Kolkata’s NRS Medical College & Hospital by the relatives of a deceased 75-year-old patient, Mohammad Shahid. One of the doctors, Paribaha Mukhopadhyay, had suffered grievous head injuries in the attack.
Mamata first tried to brazen it out. She called the protesting doctors BJP/ CPI(M) cadre, ‘outsiders’, ‘urban Naxals’ and communal agents. “A fanatic fundamentalist frenzy is on,” she alleged. “This is a BJP-CPI(M) conspiracy to create communal tension by asking doctors not to examine Muslim patients. If doctors look at surnames before treating patients, or fire officials and the army do the same, can it be tolerated?”
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة July 01, 2019 من India Today.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة July 01, 2019 من India Today.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
The Macallan M 2023 debuts in India
Standing as a pinnacle of exclusivity, The Macallan M 2023 graces the shores of India with limited 10 handpicked bottles for whisky aficionados
Give it up for the science bros
They've got brains, brawn and billions in the bank. A new breed of wellness guru is doing for men what Gwyneth Paltrow did for women.
LIVING BY THE RULES
Chetan Bhagat returns to non-fiction with his new book-11 Rules for Life
The Mysterious City
Anuradha Kumar's The Kidnapping of Mark Twain paints an intriguing portrait of Bombay around the time of the American writer's visit
GOWDA KNOWS
Hot Stage, the third book in Anita Nair's Inspector Gowda mystery series, is here
WITH OUR OWN DESI SLEUTHS
Indian detective fiction gets its due in this massive, two-volume compilation from Hachette
PRIVATE PARADISE
Your home may well be your haven, but here are easy ways to make it your very own spa-dom.
Subversive IN SUBURBIA
A MONTH-LONG SHOW AT ART AND CHARLIE, MUMBAI, SHOWCASING THE WORKS OF POONAM JAIN AND YOGESH BARVE POSES SEVERAL QUESTIONS TO THE VIEWER
THE HOME THAT WAS
A soon-to-launch gallery at the Partition Museum in Delhi will showcase artefacts capturing 'The Lost Homeland of Sindh'
The Enchanted Forest
A perfect refuge for city-weary folk, Six Senses Vana, the global brand's first dedicated wellness retreat in India, is where you go to retrieve yourself: Rest, reset and rejuvenate, the blockbuster RRR of the wellness universe.