Kolkata, Nov 10: A Trinamool Congress protest march to the West Bengal state secretariat against poor health services and restrictions on the media from entering hospitals in the state today fizzled out, with a mere 200 activists courting arrest some distance away. The police used batons as a minor scuffle broke out during the courting of arrest by the TC youth and student protestors, carrying placards decrying the "failure" of services in state-managed hospitals and shouting anti-Buddhadev Bhattacharjee government slogans.
The police stopped the procession, which stalled traffic, from proceeding to the state secretariat, writers' buildings, by barricading the College Street and Bowbazar crossing in central Kolkata.
As commotion followed, senior TC leaders including the leader of the opposition in the assembly Pankaj Banerjee, reached the scene to address the gathering, asking them to be orderly and not be provoked by the massive police ‘bundobast’.
The TC activists burnt an effigy of Health Minister Suryakanta Mishra accusing the CPI(M)-led ruling Left Front of "armed attack" on mediapersons at the state-run R G Kar Medical College and Hospital here recently and demanding immediate arrest of the culprits.
Pankaj Banerjee, the chairman of TC's Congress policy-making body, alleged that the "fascist" Chief Minister should resign for his government's failures on all fronts including providing services in state-managed hospitals despite the recent deaths "due to neglect and want of treatment”.
"Communists never quit office. We will force them to quit by launching a series of agitation," the senior leader said.
"TC will continue to protest Left Front government's misdeeds through meetings and rallies," he said.
The Trinamool Congress all-India president Madan Mitra was critical of the stringent policing saying that the men in uniform should have shown the same alacrity as evident during the TC protest in coming to the aid of media when they were attacked at the R G Kar Medical College and Hospital late at night on November 01.
“Under prolonged Marxist rule, the police is playing a partisan role at the behest of the CPI(M), while the administration has been politicised," he alleged.
The curbs on media entry to state hospitals for news gathering exposed the "fascist face" of the Left Front, he said. "This shows how intolerant the CPI(M) has become after the media exposed the sorry state of affairs and the deaths in government hospitals," added Mitra. Bureau Report