Once Marxist voice, now leader without party

New Delhi: His was the stentorian voice that effectively projected the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) view in parliament - and outside - for four decades.

Yesterday, just two days before Somnath Chatterjee's 79th birthday, that link snapped when one of India's most skilful parliamentarians and now Speaker of the lower house of parliament was expelled from his own party.

The often pugnacious and sometimes avuncular Chatterjee found himself ousted from the party he has been representing in the Lok Sabha, almost without a pause since 1971, a day after his commanding performance as its presiding officer.

Just as his many decades as MP stood out for their forceful articulation of the Left viewpoint, his four years as speaker have been remarkable.

He has cajoled, rebuked and ranted - with many a one-liner thrown in - while taking on the job of steering the 545-member house. Chatterjee may have often been criticised as a "schoolmaster", but is acknowledged as one of India's more colourful and articulate speakers.

"Let them do what they want," a defiant Chatterjee told reporters shortly before the CPI-M announced his expulsion - marking his metamorphosis to a "rebel".

This rebel, who gave up a promising career as a barrister for politics, was not the homespun, grassroots comrade in the strict mould of a card holding member of the Communist party.

The son of Nirmal Chandra Chatterjee, who was president of the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha, a forerunner of the Bharatiya Janata Party, had signed on with the CPI-M relatively late in life - when he was 39.

There was little looking back for the graduate from the Kolkata, Cambridge and Glasgow universities after that. Since 1971, he has lost an election only once - in 1984 defeated by Mamata Banerjee in Jadavpur, West Bengal.

The 10-time MP then moved to Bolpur constituency and never went back to Jadavpur.

The speaker, his colleagues in the CPI-M said, was not keen on contesting the next general elections scheduled in 2009.

Chatterjee was close to Jyoti Basu, former West Bengal chief minister, and he turned to Basu during when he was under pressure from CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat to give up the speaker's post.

In 2004, it was Karat's insistence that forced Chatterjee to quit the party's central committee citing his holding of Speaker's post.

Reactions

Left leaders agree

The Communist Party of India-Marxist's (CPI-M) decision yesterday to expel Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee evoked mixed reponses from leaders of his home state West Bengal.

While the Left leaders here justified the move and the Trinamool Congress said it was long overdue and the Congress termed it as the "darkest day in Indian parliamentary democracy", the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) described it as the first sign of the "the Red Fort crumbling".

The Left parties, ruling the state since 1977, were unanimous in their opinion that Chatterjee "deserved the punishment". CPI-M state secretary and ruling Left Front chairman Biman Bose said anyone intending to become a member of his party has to give in writing at the time of joining that he would abide by the party's constitution and policy. Communist Party of India (CPI) state secretary Manju Kumar Majumdar said: "In a Communist party, every member has to go by the party decision. Somnathbabu did not do so. So, the party has taken a decision."

- IANS