The controversy over a government doctor visiting Anubrata Mondal’s home last week took a fresh turn on Saturday with the superintendent of Bolpur sub-divisional hospital alleging that he sent a medical team on orders from Bikash Roy Chowdhury, Trinamul’s Suri MLA.
The Trinamul MLA denied he gave an order, saying he merely passed a message.
“Bikash Roy Chowdhury had asked me to send a medical team after informing me about serious health issues (Mondal). As I was on leave, I requested my colleague (Chandranath Adhikari) to visit him,” claimed Buddhadeb Murmu, superintendent of the Bolpur sub-divisional hospital.
Roy Chowdhury claimed that he did not instruct Murmu to send a medical team but merely conveyed to him a message on Mondal’s illness after being formed by someone from the Birbhum Trinamul strongman’s house.
“A person from Anubrata Mondal’s house told me about his illness and requested to arrange for his treatment. I conveyed the message to the hospital superintendent but never instructed him to send a medical team to his home and the decision was his (Murmu’s),” Roy Chowdhury said.
Firhad Hakim, the urban development minister, pitched in to quell the controversy.
“Anyone can request but no one can instruct. If I get to know that someone is ailing I can always request someone to send a doctor to visit him,” Hakim said in Calcutta. “What is wrong with this? The media is reading too much into this.”
Some CBI officials said the day’s developments were a pointer to the clout Mondal enjoyed in Birbhum .
They said it would help the agency to make a case for the arrested leader’s sphere of influence.
“Requests from political bosses are actually treated as orders…. MLAs, MPs or so-called influential persons’ requests are actually orders. But as a hospital superintendent, Murmu had to discuss it with the chief medical officer health (CMOH), his immediate superior,” said a senior official in the state health department.
The CMOH of Birbhum, Himadri Ari, however, said he was not informed by Murmu before the latter sent the medical team to Mondal’s place.
“I was not informed about the decision to send a medical team to the house of the leader. When I came to know, the team was already there,” said Ari.
The issue of sending a medical team and the confession of the doctor Chandranath Adhikari that he had to prescribe bed rest for Mondal on his “request”, widely being perceived as an instruction of the influential leader, had become embarrassing for the state health department.
Murmu, however, on Saturday said that he asked to do so as he sent the medical team on verbal orders.
The CBI has already quizzed Chandranath Adhikari and recorded his statement in detail of his visit. Sources said that the CBI may interrogate the hospital superintendent and Roy Chowdhury to find out if it was a ploy to use ill health as a shield for Mondal to skip appearing before the central agency.
Adhikari on Saturday claimed that any request by the seniors was an order and he followed the directive of his superintendent.
“If Mondal can get a doctor from a state-run hospital to visit him, he can also influence many others to do several things for him in the district,” a senior official of the central investigating agency said.
CPM veteran Sujan Chakraborty said it should be probed whether the instruction to send a medical team had come from the top of the government. BJP spokesperson Shamik Bhattacharya also echoed Chakrabarty.