An e-mail from the West Bengal government has been sent to junior doctors to attend a meeting with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at 5 pm on Thursday. Over 15 junior doctors have been invited for a meeting at Navanna Auditorium. Notably, the state government rejected the protesters’ demand for a live telecast of the talks. This is the third offer from the state government for talks in the last two days, with the agitators rejecting the previous two proposals and setting concrete conditions for the meeting. The protesting doctors are yet to respond to the communication.
Even as the state government accepted the doctors' demand for Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's presence at the meeting, it turned down their prerequisite for the live telecast of the talks, and restricted the delegation's strength to not more than 15 people as against the protesters' wish for 30 members.
The letter addressed by Chief Secretary Manoj Pant to the junior doctors, who have stayed put in a sit-in before the state health department headquarters in Salt Lake, for nearly 48 hours, said the government was "open to meeting the delegates to ensure smooth functioning of the healthcare infrastructure", but "cannot be in any manner contrary to the directions passed by the Supreme Court for resumption of work".
The development comes after the agitating junior doctors on Wednesday demanded that a 30-member delegation should be allowed to attend a meeting to resolve the RG Kar hospital impasse in presence of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
In an email reply sent at 5.23 pm to the chief secretary who had invited them to the meeting at 6 pm on Wednesday, the protesters mentioned two other demands that the meeting should be live telecast to keep it transparent.
The junior doctors, however, did not clarify whether they would be present at the meeting to be held at the state secretariat.
(With inputs from Onkar)
