By Soroor Ahmed, TwoCircles.net,
As in the Railway Ministry, Mamata Banerjee started her innings in West Bengal with a controversy. On May 26 (Thursday) the new Chief Minister shocked many of her admirers when she suspended the director of the Bangur Institute of Neuro-sciences, Dr Shyamapada Ghorai, simply because the latter told her that the trail of people following her during a surprise check of the hospital was causing inconvenience to patients. This angered Didi so much that in the evening she got him suspended notwithstanding the fact that Dr Ghorai had to take several critical surgeries a few hours later on Friday.
The whole issue has sparked off a furious debate over medical ethics which, the doctors say, the chief minister violated. She should have told her supporters and the mediapersons to wait outside the gate. How can a director of the hospital be suspended just because he, with folded hands, said “Is it possible to speak with so many people and TV cameras around? They are walking all over the patients and causing inconvenience.”
Upon this Mamata angrily said that “I haven’t brought the media with me…They move about with me because they love me. But you seem to have a problem with the media coming to your hospital.”
Mamata told him “You don’t know etiquette…how to behave with people. I don’t want to speak to you anymore. You meet me tomorrow, I will take a decision.”
Hours later the decision came and he was suspended.
All this happened when Dr Ghorai with folded hands gestured to suggest she is getting him wrong.
Whatever may be the problems in the hospital is now not the issue, one thing is clear that the director’s objection over the presence of mediapersons and supporters on the premises of hospital was justified and he cannot be suspended on this count. What is more, he was suspended just a day before he was to undertake several serious operations on Friday. He operates patients on Fridays and Tuesdays.
But this is not an isolated case involving Mamata Banerjee. No doubt she won the West Bengal election with a thumping majority but outside her own state there is no dearth of people who has doubt over her style of functioning, when she was the railway minister too.
Her decision to release White Paper––the move which virtually backfired––on her predecessor Lalu Yadav’s tenure and her decision to repeatedly blame the Left Front government of West Bengal for two major train accidents which took place in that state did not go down well elsewhere in the country. Strangely she did not utter a single word on half a dozen major collisions which took place in Uttar Pradesh during her two years stay in the Rail Bhawan.
She not only did that. When cockroaches were found in meal supplied by the railway catering in trains she charged the Communists with conspiracy to defame her.
Mamata served as the Railway Minister both during the Vajpayee government and under Manmohan Singh cabinet. Immediately after becoming the Railway Minister in 2009 she announced that her Ministry would release a White Paper to ascertain whether the Railway actually earned the profit of Rs 90,000 crore during the preceding five years or not. She came out with the White Paper in December 2009, which vainly tried to show that the figure of Rs 90,000 crore profit was widely exaggerated.
Her stand landed Manmohan Singh in an embarrassing position as Lalu Prasad was the railway minister in his cabinet in the UPA-I. As the head of the cabinet it is the Prime Minister and not just any member of his ministry who is primarily responsible, if any wrong is actually committed.
Mamata had absolutely no political rivalry with Lalu Prasad, who incidentally hailed from Bihar. The latter, on his part, always used to praise her street-fighting spirit. Not surprisingly, Mamata got a pat from none of her cabinet colleagues but from Nitish Kumar of the NDA, presently the chief minister of Bihar and the arch rival of Lalu. Nitish had also served as Railway Minister and was a cabinet colleague of Mamata when she too was in the Vajpayee cabinet.
The situation became so messy that in January 2010 the Prime Minister Office issued a notification making cabinet approval a condition for the release of White Paper by any ministry.
Similarly Mamata’s statement immediately after the rear-on collision between Uttarbanga Express and Vananchal Express in West Bengal on July 19 last, which led to the death of 70 passengers, was widely condemned outside her state. Nobody, even the Bharatiya Janata Party spokesman––one of the bitterest critics of the Left––was prepared to accept that the state government of West Bengal played any role in such a tragic disaster, which took place in Sainthia, a small railway station. How can the Leftist be blamed when the two drivers of Uttarbanga Express overshot the red signal and rammed into the stationary Vananchal Express in full speed?
Earlier, when Gyaneshwari Express got derailed and was hit by a goods train coming from the opposite direction on the parallel track killing 148 in West Midnapore district on May 28 last year she accused the ruling Marxists of causing the mishap when even the intelligence was suspecting the possible involvement of Maoists. How can the Railway Minister so quickly come out with a statement fixing blame on political rival moments after such a complicated accident?––derailment to be followed by the arrival of freight trains from opposite direction on the parallel track. What then is the meaning of inquiry by Commissioner Railway Safety (CRS). The CRSs are not Railway Ministry officials. They come from Civil Aviation Ministry. This practice had been adopted deliberately so that his inquiry could not be influenced by the rank and file of Railways. But Mamata by giving the statement gave ample signal that the CRS should follow what she wanted.
Surprisingly, Mamata chose to speak nothing when Goa Sampark Kranti Express collided rear on with Mewar Express on October 21, 2009 near Mathura in Uttar Pradesh. Two dozen passengers, many of them women, died in the accident as one of the coaches badly damaged, was Ladies’ Compartment.
She was quick to blame fog for the three collisions involving five Express trains in Uttar Pradesh on January 2, 2010 morning. In two of them moving train hit stationary train and in the third the Express smashed a tractor. Several people lost their lives. The truth is that the casualties were less in these mishaps––just over a dozen dead––because of fog as the trains were running at the slow speed. Had they been running faster the number of death and injured would have been many times more.
Never in a single day have three such mishaps taken place in one state, Uttar Pradesh, yet she did not make any political statement. This is obviously because the Leftists were not in power in that state. It is easy to blame fog and poor visibility as an excuse for overshooting the red signal but what she did not say is that nowadays drivers and guards are armed with walkie-talkies on which they get information about signals and movements of trains. By her statements as the Railway Minister Mamata had tried to shield those really responsible for the frequent accidents. So there is no fear of accountability in the rank and file of the Railways.
However, when she became the chief minister on May 20 it was expected that she would behave with much more maturity. The incident in Bangur Institute of Neuro-sciences suggests that she still behaves like any opposition leader and not the chief minister.