A day that began with hope ended in despair.
Junior doctors who sought a meeting with the chief minister on Saturday afternoon stuck to the demand to have the meeting live-streamed at her doorstep and again precipitated a deadlock.
The chief minister stepped out of her Kalighat home and requested the protesting junior doctors with folded hands that they should talk but the young brigade dug in their heels. Past 9pm and after a three-hour wait, the government said “it’s too late”.
The junior doctors, who had initially asked for live-streaming, first climbed down to a demand to video-record the discussions by both sides. They had taken two videographers along. Later, they agreed to have the discussions without live-streaming or their own video-recording but government officials at the spot said it was already “too late” to have the discussions on Saturday.
While boarding the bus back to Salt Lake, many of the junior doctors were in tears.
There was no formal reaction from the state government on why the talks could not be held despite the junior doctors agreeing to talk on terms set by the state. There was widespread opinion that the government should have held the talks and tried to end the impasse.
The chief secretary had invited a 15-member delegation of junior doctors for a meeting at chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s residence in Kalighat at 6pm. The doctors’ team left the protest site in Salt Lake at 6.09pm and reached Kalighat around 6.40pm.
The protest leaders returned to their sit-in outside the health department headquarters in Salt Lake and slammed the government in fiery speeches amid thunderous slogan shouting.
The joint platform of doctors, an umbrella organisation of several associations of senior doctors, issued a statement saying they were “disappointed” for the talks failing again.
The first attempt at truce failed on Thursday outside state secretariat Nabanna with the junior doctors insisting on live-streaming the meeting.
Besides Mamata, chief secretary Manoj Pant, home secretary Nandini Chakravorty and director-general of police Rajeev Kumar were present in Kalighat for the talks on Saturday evening.
Mamata asked the junior doctors at her door why they emailed the government seeking a meeting if they did not want to have discussions. She promised to give them a signed copy of the minutes of the discussions. She then went inside her home, requesting the junior doctors to come in for tea at least.
The medics did not step in.
The chief minister reminded the delegation that Saturday’s meeting was arranged as the junior doctors had asked for it and their email requesting a meeting did not say anything about live-streaming.
A while later the chief secretary, the home secretary and minister of state for health Chandrima Bhattacharya were seen coming out of the chief minister’s residence.
In a video the protesters shared a bit later, they were seen telling the senior officials that the delegation was ready to have the discussions on terms set by the government, which meant no video-recording by the doctors or live-streaming. But the government officials were firm not to have talks that late in the evening. Chief secretary Pant was heard telling the junior doctors that it was “too late”.
Earlier, Mamata told the junior doctors who had reached her doorstep but declined to go in without the assurance of live-steaming or video-recording by two videographers they had brought with them: “We have made arrangements for you, don’t stand in the rain. Why are you getting wet? I have made space for you.
“In your letter, live-streaming was not mentioned, nor in ours. We will record the whole thing and share it with you. We will not release it now as the case is still in (the Supreme) court. Have faith in me. I will not mislead you. My chief secretary, my DG police... we are all waiting. We have even given you umbrellas so that you don’t get drenched in the rain,” Mamata said.
The chief minister promised to hand over the recording to the junior doctors after securing permission from the Supreme Court.
“You decide if you want to come. Please come, whoever wants to come. If you were not willing to have the meeting then why did you send the letter to me?” Mamata said.
“You were supposed to come with 15 members but you have come with 40. Can anyone’s home have a seating arrangement for 40 people? Still, since you are young and have come, I have made all arrangements for you. Please come,” Mamata appealed.
One of the junior doctors tried to reason with Mamata. The doctor said they were asking for a video-recording because of the fellow junior doctors, their friends and batchmates who were at Salt Lake. The doctor said they had come with the decision to meet the chief minister.
Earlier in the afternoon, Mamata made a surprise appearance at the protest site outside Swasthya Bhavan where the protesting doctors have been squatting since Tuesday afternoon. Mamata reached at 1pm and spent around 10 minutes. She said she had come as an elder sister and saluted the junior doctors for their movement.
“I will again request you to talk among yourselves and return to work. You are my brothers and sisters. I will not take any action against you,” Mamata said.
Soon after the chief minister left, the junior doctors went into a huddle. At 4.10pm, they wrote to chief secretary Pant to have a “discussion” with the government. Pant wrote back within an hour and fixed a meeting at 6pm at the chief minister’s Kalighat residence.
The junior doctors had come to Kalighat in a bus from Salt Lake. Before boarding it on their way back to Salt Lake, they blamed the state government for the talks failing to take off for the second time in three days. “We had agreed to talk on the terms offered by the government. But they said it was too late,” said Debashis Halder, a junior doctor who went to Kalighat.
“We showed respect to the CM and agreed to talk on terms set by the government. We showed positive intent from our side to talk. But we saw senior officials leaving in front of us in cars. We were told to leave or that they will call the bus and put us inside the bus,” Halder said.