Red Baron

Being the country8217;s first Marxist Speaker, Chatterjee is on the verge of making history. 8216;8216;It8217;s a job,8217;8217; admits every circle unanimously, 8216;8216;that would best suit a personality like him, rich in oratory, wit and wisdom.8217;8217;

Behind this momentous move was the grand old man of the CPIM who lobbied hard for Chatterjee. Within the CPIM, Somnath Chatterjee is one of those leaders who has grown up almost in an identical mould of Basu himself. A blue blood among the red. Or, to quote a leader among the left constituents 8212;8216;8216;an aristocrat among the proletariats.8217;8217; Chatterjee studied at Cambridge and later earned his barrister-at-law degree from Middle Temple in England. But his aristocratic, wealthy family background has hardly been a hurdle. Neither has it diluted Chatterjee8217; commitment to the path that he opted for as early as in 1968, the year he took up membership of the CPIM.

It was also the period when Chatterjee8217;s father, the late N C Chatterjee began to shift allegiance from the rightwing Hindu Mahasabha to the Left. An established barrister, N C Chatterjee was a parliamentarian for the Hindu Mahasabha since 1952. But he suffered a shock defeat in 1962 Lok Sabha polls. In 1966, Bengal was rocked by a food movement and the ruling Congress was accused of police repression on those who participated in the agitation. N C Chatterjee protested police excesses and lent his support to the movement, spearheaded by the Leftists and non-Congress elements. It was also the time when Somnath Chatterjee came in touch with senior CPIM leaders as he was giving legal help to civil liberty groups and activists.

Within the CPIM, Chatterjee has never been the 8216;8216;grassroot8217;8217; leader in the sense Biman Bose or Benoy Chowdhury are. It might partly explain why despite his age8212;he will turn 75 this July8212; and experience, he has not yet been inducted as a politburo member. But he has certainly been given his due share of respect as the CPIM8217;s most authoritative voice in Delhi.

It was his robustly positive mindset that made Jyoti Basu appoint Chatterjee as chairman of the board of directors of the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation in 1994. Basu was desperate for an industrial rejuvenation of the state and Chatterjee became the Marxists8217; 8216;8216;friendly8217;8217; face for the industry. Though law has been his forte, Chatterjee is a versatile character8212;a trade unionist, a sports lover and a social worker. When his daughter Anushila brought out a Rabindra Sangeet cassette recently, Chatterjee lent his voice to the narration.

The youngest of three sisters and two brothers, Somnath Chatterjee was first elected to the Lok Sabha in 1971 from Burdwan and since then has been elected to the parliament ten times. It was the sympathy wave of 1984 following Indira Gandhi8217;s assassination that saw him defeated in Jadavpur. He lost to Mamata Banerjee. Chatterjee shifted territory and began to contest from Bolpur. Chatterjee8217;s popularity is measured by the huge margin of his victory. This time he defeated his nearest TMC candidate by over 310,000 votes.

This election, however, saw him entangled in a controversy over his affidavit. While he declared property worth Rs 55 lakh, there were allegations that a single property of his on Shakespeare Sarani was worth much more. Till recently, the British Council Library in Kolkata was Chatterjee8217;s tenant. Whatever the truth, even Leftists are now probably reconciling to the idea that being rich is not a crime.