Trouble in Trinamool: Jawhar Sircar turns down Mamata's request to reconsider resignation decision

Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member Jawhar Sircar -- a retired Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer -- has turned down West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's request to reconsider his decision to resign from the Upper House of the Parliament as well as quit politics.

According to sources, after Sircar's communique to the Chief Minister expressing his desire to resign from Rajya Sabha and quit politics as protest against the ghastly rape and murder of a junior doctor of R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital, and the corruption in general governance surfaced on Sunday morning, Mamata Banerjee -- also the Trinamool Congress supremo -- personally called up Sircar and requested him to reconsider his decision.

However, Sircar "politely yet firmly" told the Chief Minister that since his message has already been communicated to the people, it is not possible for him to withdraw the decision.

It has been learnt that Sircar would be officially placing his resignation to the Chairman of Rajya Sabha on September 12.

In his communique to the Chief Minister, Sircar claimed that never in his life he had witnessed such grievances and no-confidence against any government and the ruling dispensation.

"I personally feel that the current protests on this issue have been totally apolitical and spontaneous in nature. So it would be unfair to resist this movement by giving it a political tag. The movement is not just demanding justice for the victim but also against the state government and ruling dispensation," Sircar pointed out in the letter.

He also said that the current protests on this issue have been totally apolitical and spontaneous in nature.

"So it would be unfair to resist this movement by giving it a political tag. The movement is not just demanding justice for the victim but also against the state government and ruling dispensation," Sircar pointed out in the letter.

In his letter to Mamata Banerjee, Sircar also mentioned that he had decided to resign from the Rajya Sabha in 2022 after evidence of corruption against former West Bengal Education Minister, Partha Chatterjee, surfaced.

"I was harassed by a section of the party leadership. However, I refrained from resigning with a belief that you will continue with your moves against financial corruption," Sircar pointed out in the letter.

He further said that the current mass movement throughout West Bengal on the R.G. Kar issue is because of the muscle flexing by a section of the pampered bureaucracy and corrupt persons.

"I have never witnessed such grievance and non-confidence against any government ever in my life. After carefully observing the sequence of events on the R.G. Kar issue for the last month, a question came to my mind about why you are not directly interacting with the protesting junior doctors as you used to do before," Sircar said.

He also said that the disciplinary measures being adopted by the state government now is a very late initiative and the situation in the health administration in the state could have been better had these disciplinary actions been taken much before.