West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee seems to be losing the plot. Not because her rivals, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Left, are winning the war of narratives in the Kolkata rape-and-murder case. It’s because her administration and party, the Trinamool Congress, look reckless and clueless as public anger and protests build up. She is right about the politicisation of the brutal tragedy that struck the 31-year-old doctor at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. But who would know the politics of protests better than Banerjee? She carries many scars on her body from the injuries she sustained during the hundreds of protests she led on the streets of Bengal when she was an Opposition leader.
There are many questions being raised—about the role and response of the police, attempts to hush it up as a suicide case, and conspiracy theories, among others. I am looking at only two of these questions because they concern the political savviness of Team Banerjee. Why on earth did the government transfer the RG Kar principal to another prominent hospital, instead of dismissing him summarily and getting the police to question him? That was arguably the most glaring mistake that lent credence to rumours about attempts to hide the truth. Instead of ‘sacrificing’ the principal, the government chose to implicate itself by shielding him. One fails to understand why a sharp politician like Banerjee would do that.
The buzz in the corridors of power in Kolkata is that it was not the CM but an orthopaedist close to her who was instrumental in shielding the RG Kar Principal, his protégé. Be that as it may, the CM can’t escape the blame for building such a system of patronage.
My second question is what prompted the government to transfer 43 doctors and professors, including a few from the RG Kar hospital, in the middle of nationwide protests by doctors. Coming in the backdrop of vandalism at the hospital, in which some protesting doctors were also attacked, the transfer only lent credence to speculation about the government attempting to muzzle those demanding justice.
One doesn’t expect such miscalculations by a CM and politician who herself came out to protest and demand justice in what looked like a surreal attempt to blunt the Opposition’s moves.
There are many, many questions Banerjee needs to find answers to. Because it’s not just the Opposition and the general public, many of her party colleagues are also suspicious.
Take a look at what Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, the party’s Rajya Sabha member, wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah last week. Urging him to bring a stringent legislation in Parliament to prevent atrocities against women, Ray wrote: “Any complaints for incidents of sexual harassment, rape, rape with murder, shall be statutorily recorded immediately after the incident and must be immediately reported to the nearest police station, failing which the concerned police official/other authorities must be suspended and proceeded against criminally.”
The fact that Ray sought Amit Shah’s help to fix the accountability of the police in general won’t flatter the Kolkata police. If anyone still had doubts about the reasons behind his decision to write the letter, he virtually gave it away in a tweet Sunday morning. “CBI must act fairly. Custodial interrogation of Ex Principal and Police Commissioner is a must to know who and why floated suicide story. Why wall of hall demolished, who patronized Roy to be so powerful, Why sniffer dog used after 3 days.100s of such questions. Make them speak (sic),” tweeted the TMC MP.
TMC leader Shantanu Sen was earlier removed as a spokesperson for the party after reportedly speaking against the former RG Kar Principal.
Also read: I am a woman doctor and I was taught to keep quiet. Kolkata rape shattered my bubble
Listen to the right voices
Mamata Banerjee may not care about what the Opposition is alleging or her party colleagues are asking but she must think about the victim’s parents’ reaction. Even though she visited the deceased doctor’s grieving family, they went to the High Court to seek a CBI inquiry, showing distrust in the state police. They are not politicians. They are just unfortunate parents who want justice for their wronged daughter.
If they don’t trust the police, rightly or wrongly, Mamata Banerjee must introspect why. She must also realise that everyone who came out on Kolkata streets for ‘Reclaim the Night’ marches was not from the BJP or the Left. She must get her ear back to the ground to listen to their voices.
As for the Opposition’s aggression on this issue and its electoral implications, Mamata Banerjee may not lose sleep at this stage. BJP leaders in New Delhi may be firing on all cylinders at press conferences and on social media but they know the reality on the ground. It’s largely the Left cadres and sympathisers who have been instrumental in turning the Kolkata rape-and-murder case into a mass movement—the kind one saw in Delhi in the Nirbhaya case 12 years back.
The next Assembly elections in West Bengal are 20 months away—in March-April 2026. In the 2021 Assembly election, the Communist Party of India and CPI(Marxist)—the big brothers in the Left front—got less than five per cent votes and 0 seats in the 294-member Assembly. And in the Lok Sabha elections, they got less than six per cent votes and 0 seats from West Bengal. Non-believers that they supposedly are, even the Comrades can’t expect a miracle to turn things around for them in 20 months.
What, however, may keep the Trinamool Congress wary is the possibility of the Left building momentum against the government, which may help the BJP, the principal Opposition, when elections come. With the Kolkata rape-and-murder case, the BJP sees another possibility of breaking Mamata Banerjee’s grip on women voters.
Also read: Kolkata has a Trust Deficit Disorder. RG Kar rape shows it’s reaching tipping point
No reason to worry yet
But the BJP’s biggest challenge is its image, which took a hit because of its stance on a series of high-profile cases of atrocities against women across the country—from shielding then Haryana minister Sandeep Singh and BJP leader from Uttar Pradesh Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh in sexual harassment charges and also defending Manipur CM Biren Singh despite horrendous stories of crime against women.
Visuals of Olympian Vinesh Phogat being dragged on roads by the Delhi police are difficult to erase. During the Paris Olympics, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called up wrestler Aman Sehrawat and shooter Many Bhaker when they won medals. But Phogat got no call from the PM even after beating the hitherto undefeated Japanese wrestler. The next morning when there was nationwide public outrage over her disqualification, the PM called up Indian Olympic Association president PT Usha, but not Vinesh, about the latter’s case even as he tweeted in her support and using all the nice words. That the BJP has not forgiven her for raising voice against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and embarrassing it. That was evident from the fact that no BJP leader was present at her roadshow after her return from Paris on Sunday.
In West Bengal, the BJP made a big election issue out of alleged sexual harassment of women by TMC functionaries in Sandeshkhali. In the run-up to the Lok Sabha election, for weeks and months, top BJP leaders, including PM Modi, visited the place and made the alleged exploitation of women by TMC men a national issue. The BJP even gave a party ticket to one of the victims, Rekha Patra, from Basirhat Lok Sabha. The Prime Minister personally spoke to her.
With the Lok Sabha elections over, the BJP has forgotten about Sandeshkhali. Party leaders have no time to visit the place any more. They have even stopped talking about it.
But post-election amnesia in the BJP isn’t new. The party made a big deal of its workers being attacked and killed in Bengal. When was the last time you heard any big BJP leader talking about those purported killings?
But, it’s not just in Bengal. In the run-up to the 2018 Karnataka Assembly election, Amit Shah had promised to “find the killers” of 23 Hindutva workers and get justice for them. Elections over, and the party forgot about it.
Mamata Banerjee must, therefore, be confident about the BJP forgetting about the RG Kar hospital rape-and-murder case soon and moving on. But she must also remember that Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement in 2011 might have laid the foundation for the birth of the Aam Aadmi Party, but it was the nationwide outrage over the Nirbhaya case in Delhi that led to the wiping out of the Congress from the national capital. Then Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit had also gone to Jantar Mantar to show her solidarity with the people gathered there. She even lit a candle for Nirbhaya.
As it was, it didn’t help Dikshit’s or Congress’ cause in Delhi.
DK Singh is Political Editor at ThePrint. He tweets @dksingh73. Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)