MAMATA ON BACKFOOT AS BJP DEMANDS HER RESIGNATION

The gruesome Kolkata rape cum murder of a young junior doctor and the unending protests throughout the country have put the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in a very awkward position, wherein the Saffron Brigade is asking for her resignation.

- Pankaj Vohra

Although President Droupadi Murmu in media reports has not mentioned the Kolkata incident in particular, yet she has expressed her deep anguish and concern over the rising crimes against women in the country, stating that “enough is enough’’. She said that many rapes have taken place since the Nirbhaya case, and all this had to stop. The mindsets had to change. In the backdrop of wide condemnation of the incident, the BJP has been mounting pressure on Mamata to quit while she has decided to fight it out, by declaring that if Bengal was set on fire, the flames could spread to other parts of the country as well.

This is her way of letting the BJP and its allies know, that the ramifications of their agitation could be in other regions too and therefore, this kind of political activity was not going to benefit anyone as such. However, one thing is certain that ever since Mamata came to power, this is for the first time, she is under a direct threat, and within her own party also, there are voices which do not concur with the manner in which the government and the police handled the aftermath of the brutal rape. The case is being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation and obviously a lot of things, in the process, though not related to the incident could come out of the probe.