'Will you ask Siddaramaiah to quit?': TMC asks Rahul Gandhi after RG Kar barb

Rahul Gandhi

The Trinamool Congress has launched a barrage of attacks on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi after he criticised ally Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal over last week’s rape and murder of a junior doctor, saying attempts were being made to “save the accused”.

While posting a clip of a news article on Karnataka governor Thaawar Chand Gehlot granting sanction for the prosecution of CM Siddaramaiah in an alleged land allotment scam, former TMC Rajya Sabha MP Kunal Ghosh posted on X: So, @RahulGandhi ji, will you ask your CM to resign? This is a gross allegation of corruption. Without having correct information about WB incident, without knowing Steps taken by @MamataOfficial , you made comment in social media. Now, will u kindly take steps regarding your CM

The Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha wrote on X that efforts to save those guilty instead of providing justice to the victim raised “serious questions” about the hospital and the local administration.

The body of the 31-year-old victim, who was a postgraduate trainee doctor at R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital, was found in a seminar hall on the morning of 9 August, where she had apparently retired to sleep the night before.

Police have arrested a hospital volunteer in connection with the gruesome assault in Kolkata’s 138-year-old medical institute. The Calcutta High Court has already handed over the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Rahul’s attack on West Bengal's ruling dispensation adds a new twist to the blow-hot, blow-cold relationship between the two parties. Although the TMC refused to directly tie up with the Congress in the last Lok Sabha election, it has stood with the INDIA parties in Parliament.

The latest flashpoint between the two was Mamata attending a recent NITI Aayog meeting in Delhi, which other INDIA chief ministers boycotted. It was seen as an attempt to distinguish the TMC from the Congress-led opposition bloc and not be playing second fiddle to it. During her Delhi visit, the Trinamool chief also said the Congress was in cahoots with the Left and the BJP in Bengal.