There is a stir in the party due to the resignation of Rajya Sabha MP Jawahar Sarkar from Trinamool Congress. There are reports that party chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee herself has contacted Sarkar and asked him to consider the resignation. However, TMC has not officially said anything about the talks between the two leaders. The MP had announced to leave the post after being upset with the attitude of the state government on the RG tax issue.
According to India Today’s report, Bengal CM Banerjee called Jawahar Sarkar and urged him to reconsider the decision. The report quoted sources as saying that Sarkar will reach the capital Delhi on September 11 and submit his resignation to the Rajya Sabha Secretariat. The body of a trainee doctor was found in the seminar hall of RG Kar College and Hospital on August 9, who was brutally murdered after being raped.
What did Jawahar Sarkar say
In a letter to CM Banerjee on Sunday, Sarkar has talked about quitting politics and Rajya Sabha membership. He has described the steps taken by the state government in the case of alleged rape and murder of a doctor of RG Kar Hospital as ‘inadequate and taken too late’. In the letter, Jawahar Sarkar said that he has become ‘disillusioned’ with the state government, as it seems that the state government is ‘not at all concerned’ about corruption and the strategy of use of force by a section of leaders.
There was preparation to resign even earlier
Sarkar said that in 2022, a year after joining the Trinamool, he was “quite shocked” to see “open evidence” of corruption against former education minister Partha Chatterjee.
He said, ‘I had publicly said that the party and the (state) government should deal with corruption, but senior party leaders surrounded me. I did not resign then because I hoped that you (Mamata Banerjee) would continue your public campaign against ‘cut money’ and corruption, which you started a year ago.’
The former bureaucrat said he was persuaded by his well-wishers to remain an MP so that he could continue his fight against a regime “which is the biggest threat ever to Indian democracy and civil liberties.”
(With agency input)
