Somnathbabu has become our hero for the strong stand he has taken against the party. But his party has become the villain in the perception of our community. Till now, we used to think they are secular. The mask has now fallen,” said an angry Muhammed Mohsin, the middle-aged headmaster of Chunpalasi High school in Illambazar that falls in Somnath Chatterjee’s Lok Sabha constituency of Bolpur. Chatterjee’s contribution of Rs two lakh from the MP fund helped the school building come up in 2001.As the fate of the UPA Government hangs in the balance with Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee occupying centerstage, the fallout of the developments in Delhi have touched this far-away constituency in a big way. Chatterjee’s popularity has soared while that of the party has evidently nosedived. Voters have begun questioning the CPI(M)’s secular credentials.After being defeated by Mamata Banerjee in Jadavpur constituency in 1984, Chatterjee switched to Bolpur where he defeated former Congress CM Siddhartha Shankar Ray in 1985, after the death of the sitting MP. Bolpur has returned him to the Lok Sabha in every election since then. If Chatterjee’s words are any indication, he is going to call it a day and would not enter the electoral arena any more.“Ever since he became the Speaker, he stopped visiting the party office in Bolpur; not only in Bolpur, but elsewhere too, on principle,” said Chatterjee’s pointsman in Bolpur CPI(M) party office, Hirendranath Ghosh.Ghosh went on to add, “He had become the Speaker by unanimous choice, not as a CPI(M) MP. I am all for party diktats, but people’s sentiments should be respected as well.”Bolpur has 30 per cent Muslim voters. At the grassroots level, comrades are finding it difficult to answer some tough questions being put to them.“I have spoken to the Speaker even today over phone,” added Ghosh as he showed a letter he had received from Chatterjee’s office regarding setting up of a bank in Bahiri village near Bolpur. “He still finds time to address public grievances,” said Ghosh.Sheikh Kamal, zonal committee member of Illambazar, a Muslim-dominated block under Bolpur, looked frustrated, sitting in the his office in Ghurisha where his party lost in the panchayat elections to Siddiqullah Choudhuri-led PDCI, a couple of months back. “Already, in the last panchayat elections, a section of the Muslims turned against us. Moreover, if we finally vote along with the BJP against the UPA, our reputation as an anti-communalism party will be under threat. It was very hard for us to build our secular image at the grassroots level and now we have to face the music from the villagers,” Kamal said.From local farmers to intellectuals in Santiniketan, people voiced their anguish against the CPI(M) and for their Speaker MP. For octogenarian Bhobotosh Datta, who was Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s professor of Bengali at Presidency College in the 60s, it is Somnath and not the CPI(M) who matters.“Everybody here wants Somnath to stay on as the Speaker and also as our MP. I would have never voted for the CPI(M) but for Somnath. He maintains a great degree of neutrality. I have seen him from close quarters. He looks after everybody, irrespective of political affiliations,” said Dutta.Bolpur ConstituencyTotal population 15,00,000Total number of electorates 10, 35,012Muslim population 31 per centIn 2004 Lok Sabha elections, Somnath Chatterjee got 5,04,836, Nirmal Majhi of TMC got 1,94,531, Dhananjoy Ghosh of the Congress got 48,756
