R G Kar Medical College And Hospital

"Never sought Mamata's resignation": Physicians accuse Bengal government of botching the meeting to break the deadlock over RG Kar.

Doctors furious that the RG Kar standoff could not be resolved criticized the West Bengal administration, claiming they never asked for the chief minister's resignation.

Kolkata: After the police broke up their protest march towards Swasthya Bhawan over the rape and murder at RG Kar Hospital, junior doctors in the city scream slogans while sitting on a dharna.(PTI)

Following the failure of a recent attempt to mediate the medic unrest in Kolkata, indignant doctors on Thursday blamed the West Bengal government for its intransigence in preventing the meeting from being streamed live. They further stated that they never demanded chief minister Mamata Banerjee's resignation, as she had offered, in relation to the rape and killing of a junior doctor in Kolkata last month.

The physicians declared that their "cease work" movement would not end until their demands were satisfied and that Mamata Banerjee was trying to place the responsibility for the standoff around the RG Kar issue on the medics through her words.

The comments made by the chief minister are regrettable. We want for the discussions to happen. The state government, however, was emphatic that the meeting could not be streamed live. We have good reason to demand this. One of the irate physicians remarked, "We wanted live streaming for the transparency of the meeting," according to PTI.

As required by the demonstrators, the meetings with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee were set for 5 p.m. The CM had to wait almost two hours to speak with the irate junior physicians. The conference did not, however, proceed as planned.

The protesting physicians refused to engage any negotiations with the West Bengal administration unless their demand for the live transmission of the meeting was satisfied.

"We are not here to demand her resignation, nor have we ever asked for it. We are here to seek justice for the RG Kar Hospital doctor who was killed. We desired a solution to this problem. We are quite disappointed that the discussions were canceled. However, we will continue to wait for an answer from the administration," the irate physician declared.

Another protestor countered that they never asked Mamata to quit over the issue. She stated that not even the victim doctor's parents had called for the chief minister to step down.

Justice (for the assassinated RG Kar hospital doctor) is our goal, not this. We've made no mention of demanding her resignation in our five requests. We're really clear about what we want. We want people who obstruct the course of justice to be held accountable by the law. She stated that not even the victim's parents had asked for her resignation.

This comes after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed her unhappiness over the junior physicians' unwillingness to meet on Thursday, saying she is "ready to resign and leave the post for the sake of the people."