Sushil Kutty

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is in denial mode and is not bothered about the changing public perception of her following her handling of a rape-cum-murder of a Kolkata trainee-doctor. Her INDIA bloc partner,Samajwadi Party Supremo Akhilesh Yadav, has not yet issued a statement as of writing this column.and

Though Congress’ Raebareli MP Rahul Gandhi has tweeted his staunch condemnation of the incident on August 14, but it has come after the hue and cry on social and broadcast media has been undeniable.

The protests against CMMamata Banerjee spread nationwide after Mamata chose to speak in riddles when the bloodied near-naked body of a trainee doctor was found in a Kolkata hospital, the victim of rape-cum-murder.

Perhaps even gang-rape.Initial media reports spoke of the CM and the hospital administration choosing to underplay the horrendous crime, going to the extent of ruling the death as “suicide”; changing tack only after outrage hit the fan and resident doctors all over India struck work, taking to the streets.

Mamata Banerjee wanted the case to remain in the hands of the Kolkata Police. But the Calcutta High Court handed it to a court-monitored CBI investigation. It is embarrassing.

CMMamata Banerjee, a powerful INDIA bloc leader, is helpless and accused of a cover-up. “How can a woman chief minister be so insensitive to the rape and murder of a woman doctor while she was on night duty?”

The powerful CM is being charged with misleading the investigation into a cul de sac, a deadend, even before the police investigation could start in earnest. The High Court decision to hand the case to the CBI couldn’t be more telling.

Sandeshkali was bad enough for Mamata Banerjee. This one takes forward the diatribe against her to a higher decibel. Who to believe, CMMamata Banerjee or the parents of the rape-cum-murder victim? The parents have spoken. They don’t trust the TMC supremo and her police.

The fact is, the CM herself made sure nobody trusted her. The parents were first told that their daughter was “unwell”. Then, that she had “committed suicide”. Then, at the hospital, they were made to wait for three hours before being allowed a glimpse of their daughter’s ravaged and bloodied body.

“How can she have the name ‘Mamata’?” asked the slain victim’s mother. CM Banerjee couldn’t stop herself from trying to contain the potential damage to her party/government, and to herself.

This was one “rape-cum-murder” that wouldn’t leave her untouched. The woman trainee doctor was raped and murdered while on duty and the horror of it was no less horrible than the rape-cum-murder of Delhi’s Nirbhaya in 2012. CM Mamata Banerjee will eventually escape this massive dent in her public profile, but it will not be a cinch.

It defies logic why Banerjee cannot see the harm done to her standing by living in denial. She has no reassuring words for the resident doctors and for the parents of the victim. The perpetrator(s) made sure the victim wouldn’t be alive and the Chief Minister tried to make sure her police would write the last word!

Towards that end, the principal of RG Kar Medical College was removed promptly. But to keep him silent or whatever, he was given a promotion, and a new hospital to call his own.

Within four hours, the “sacked” RG Kar principal was appointed principal of another, even older, government hospital and medical college in Kolkata.

Any other politician and he/she would be worried about what all the hanky-panky would do to reputation and image, but CM Mamata Banerjee is made of sterner stuff; Mamata Banerjee is confident as only confident can be! None of the “bad things happening to her” would stop West Bengal voters from voting for the Trinamool Congress, she thinks.

It is like Donald Trump, who famously said, “Doesn’t matter, even if I shoot dead somebody in Times Square, I will get their votes!” Is Mamata Banerjee of the same mettle? Banerjee is trying her best to limit damage done to the hospital and to her, both personally and politically, knowing well that the “public” has a short memory.

Also, there is a difference between vote-bank and voter. When the voter becomes part of a vote-bank, he/she loses conscience. Like in the AyodhyaLok Sabha constituency, where the rapist of a 12-year-old is being defended by an alliance of vote-banks because he happens to be a close confidante of the local MP.

The Calcutta High Court has intervened and taken away the case from the hands of the Kolkata Police. CM Mamata Banerjee gave Kolkata Police six days. The High Court transferred the case in its first hearing itself, citing “no significant progress in the investigation.”

The court spoke of “destruction of evidence” and took exception to the reinstatement of the principal. Mamata Banerjee’s ‘Didi’ image has taken a massive hit. And Kolkata or Kannauj, or, for that matter, HathrasorKathua, rape remains a monster in our midst.