Somnath continues as Speaker, CPM mounts pressure

Chatterjee is apparently reluctant to quit and has told a Kolkata daily that CPI-M did not consult him before putting his name in the list of Left MPs withdrawing support to the UPA government last week.

“No I was not consulted. I came to know after (it was presented to the President),” he told the daily after his meeting with Marxist patriarch Jyoti Basu on Sunday.

On Monday, the CPI-M General Secretary Prakash Karat issued a statement in which he said he has already stated that any decision will be taken by the Speaker himself.

“This has been reiterated by the Speaker through a statement by his office on July 10, 2008,” he said in the release.

Interestingly, Karat called the Speaker as “Comrade” Somanth Chatterjee and referred to a lot of speculation in the media regarding his position.

“We do not want the office of the Speaker being dragged into any unnecessary controversy,” Karat said.

While there was no word from the Speaker, maverick

CPI-M leader from West Bengal Subhas Chakrabarty, considered a protege of Marxist patriarch Jyoti Basu, said the post of the Speaker has its sanctity and is above politics.

Chatterjee was elected unanimously by members of all parties and his case should not be viewed as a CPI-M party affair, he said.

While withdrawing support to the UPA Government on July nine, the Left parties put the Speaker’s name in the list of MPs for the purpose.

On that day, Karat had said that Chatterjee would take a decision for himself taking into account the Left parties’ decision relating to the Government.

The next day, the Speaker’s office issued a statement

saying that he “does not represent any political party in the discharge of his duties and functions… Since his election as Speaker, Somnath Chatterjee has scrupulously kept himself away from all political activities.”

Since then, the party has been mounting pressure on

Chatterjee, who on Sunday met Marxist patriarch Jyoti Basu. Basu is understood have advised him to toe the party line on the issue and present a united face.

Senior Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee also met Basu on Sunday in Kolkata and is believed to have told him that the Congress would prefer that the Speaker continue in the post.