Kolkata, Oct 12 (IANS) Mass resignations by senior doctors, including members of the medico-academic fraternity, from different state-run medical colleges & hospitals of West Bengal to express solidarity to junior doctors protesting against the ghastly rape and murder of a junior woman doctor of R.G Kar Medical Colleges & Hospital are not legally acceptable, a senior state government figure said on Saturday.

"Mass resignation is not a legally acceptable resignation for the state government. Unless given individually, a resignation letter is not a legally acceptable one. There had been such mass resignations in a scattered manner from different places. The state government intends to make the legal stand in the matter clear," Alapan Bandopadhyay, the chief advisor to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, said at a press conference.

During the last few days, around 300 senior doctors, including members from the medico-academic community, from at least seven state-run medical colleges and hospitals have tendered mass resignations. In fact, these senior doctors too have made it clear these mass resignations are just initial token protests and if the state government desires, they will submit individual resignations at a later stage.

Meanwhile, a senior officer of the state government said that there is a specific procedure for all state government officials and staff including doctors to resign from service.

"Each and everyone needs to follow and go through that procedure and the resignation cannot be accepted overnight," he said.

The event of the state government making its stand clear on the mass resignation comes on a day when the fast-unto-death agitation by the junior doctors has entered the eighth day. While eight junior doctors are fasting at a dais at Esplanade in central Kolkata, two are doing the same within the campus of North Bengal Medical College & Hospital (NBMCH) at Siliguri in Darjeeling district.

Indian Medical Association's (IMA) national President R.V. Asokan, who came to West Bengal on Friday and met the doctors on a hunger strike, said that the protests by the junior doctors are not in self-interest but in the larger public interest.

However, at the same time, he requested the fasting doctors to withdraw their agitation, saying "Life comes first".