We have become fatherless today

Jyoti Basu was not happy with the Left parties withdrawing support from the UPA government in July 2008.

Jyoti Basu was not happy with the Left parties withdrawing support from the UPA government in July 2008. He told this to some people who I believe he trusted,though I never discussed the issue with him. I came to know from them Basus trusted people. What he had told me was that I must preside over the trust vote debate in Lok Sabha,because no political party can direct the Speaker,otherwise it would send a bad message to the people. Moreover,he left the decision to me,whether I would resign from the Speakers post after the trust vote. I mentioned his name the day I became the Speaker and the day I left. I do not know whether he supported my expulsion,but whenever I met him at Indira Bhawan,I never felt that he treated me like an expelled member. He used to joke sometimes,dekho expelled leader esheche look here comes the expelled leader. In my memoirs Jyoti Basu will definitely be a part.

Without him I would not have been in Parliament,neither held the positions I held in the West Bengal government. I have been associated with him for nearly 50 years. I had the opportunity of serving under him. When he was the chief minister he appointed me as the chairman of West Bengal Small Scale Industries Corporation followed by West Bengal Handicrafts Development Corporation and West Bengal Industruial Development Corporation. I do not know why he chose me and what he saw in me. These are not favoured posts,there are no cars no money.

But he gave me more and more responsibilities. Whatever right I have done is under his guidance,whatever wrong there is was because of me. Whenever I went to him,he was kind and compassionate.

According to me,this is a great loss to the country and Indian politics. He was an outstanding leader,both in this century and the last century. Now a void has been created. I do not know how this void can be filled. The very fact that he earned the respect of not only the common people but the entire political spectrum. All political parties are mourning now,many of them are opposed to the CPIM. His greatest quality was to relate to the common people,understand their mood and pulse. Therefore,he could meet their aspirations and the people trusted him. They knew he would not make a false promise.

Being a barrister,he could have led a comfortable life after he came back from London,but he chose to stay in a railway colony in Kanchrapara and served the railwaymen,organised them. He created history when he entered Assembly.

Later,he continuously served the people as chief minister for 24 years. His first move as chief minister was land reforms and constituting panchayats. He organised people and gave them the right to determine what benefits them. Nobody ever tried to do that in India. Here was a man who stood by all of us,provided us respect and helped improve our condition.

Do not forget that at that time the Centre was very powerful,and for a long period of time West Bengal was facing problems from the Centre. However,he never tried to destroy the federal structure,but strengthened it. He had always said,Let all the states compete among themselves in a friendly manner. It is a matter of friendly competetion. But the situation was different then,we had to wait a long time for Bakreshwar Thermal Power Project and Haldia Petrochemicals. We had to wait for years to get the licence. But he tried to reason with the Centre. It was his co-operative endeavour.

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Where can you find such a person. In 1996,he was requested,requested,requested to become the prime minister of India. He was unchalleged amongst all political parties. We saw leaders of all political parties thronging the hospital. His another acheivement was to run a coalition government in West Bengal for such a long period and so succesfully. It is a 12-party alliance. During his time,we have never seen bickerings among Left Front partners,because all of them trusted him and respected his leadership. He knew how to run a coalition. Such was the respect he earned from all political parties. He had political acceptability.

We have become fatherless today.

Somnath Chatterjee

As told to Bidyut Roy and Ravik Bhattacharya