Kolkata, Aug 13, 2018:

Former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee’s family on Monday turned down the request of the CPI-M leadership to drape the expelled member’s body in the red flag and allow him to be taken to the party’s West Bengal state headquarters here for people to pay their last respects.

“The party had requested us that they want to take the body to the state headquarters for partymen to pay their respects. But we said, we don’t want. The party had requested us that they wanted to drape the body with red flag. We refused,” Chatterjee’s daughter Anushila Basu said.

Chatterjee, a ten time Lok Sabha member — nine times as a CPI-M candidate and once as an independent backed by the party — was expelled on July 23, 2008, for refusing to step down as the Lok Sabha Speaker after the party withdrew support to the UPA-1 government protesting against the India-US civil nuclear deal.

He died at a Kolkata nursing home on Monday, aged 89.

Anushila recalled that she had seen her father shed tears the day the party expelled him.

She still vividly remembers the day the CPI-M politburo took the decision.

“I was in Delhi then. I told my father that from now on, you are a free bird. My father asked me whether he has been show caused? I told him the truth….After some time, I went to see him at his chamber. I found him sitting in his ante-chamber with tears rolling down his eyes,” she said.

Anushila said neither Chatterjee, nor any other family member, could accept the harsh decision.

However, she said Chatterjee to the last had a deep love for the party.

“We often tried to provoke him to speak against the party. But he never uttered a word against the party. So deep was his fondness.

“The divorce was only on pen and paper. But mentally, he was not divorced from the party,” she said.

Anushila said a number of other parties and others had come to his father with many lucrative offers. “But his answer was always the same — No”.

CPI-M sources said as per the party constitution, an expelled member has to apply for his re-entry into the party. Feelers had been sent to Chatterjee in that regard, but he refused to apply on his own. However, Chatterjee had let it be known that he would be game if the party on its own took him back.

“Somnath da is Somnath da. He is incomparable. We had tried to resolve the issue. But it got stalled on a technicality,” said CPI-M state secretariat member Rabin Deb.

“We continued to have regular connection/relation with him,” said CPI-M state Secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra.

Few politicians could claim to have seen as many twists and turns of human life as former Lok Sabha speaker and expelled Marxist Somnath Chatterjee had. The son of an All India Hindu Mahasabha leader, jurist and parliamentarian Nirmal Chandra Chatterjee, he essayed easily on both sides of political divide by embracing communism.

In the 1960s, communism was a dominant ideology internationally and NC Chatterjee was also disenchanted by the politics of Hindu Mahasabha. Like a chip of the old block, Somnath Chatterjee became singularly attracted to Marxism and remained wedded to it till he was forcibly evicted by new apparatchiks of the communist ideology in 2008.

File image of Somnath Chatterjee.

He was sad when he was expelled from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) following his refusal to kowtow to the party line as speaker of the Lok Sabha. In the UPA-I government, then prime minister Manmohan Singh ramrodded his pet issue — the India-US nuclear deal — through the Parliament despite warning from the single largest alliance partner, CPM. Party general secretary Prakash Karat, considered a hardliner, withdrew support and asked Chatterjee to resign as Speaker. Chatterjee found the condition unacceptable and faced expulsion even though he continued as Speaker.

One of the most famous quotes after expulsion from the CPM attributed to him reveals his pain. “I will carry the scar of expulsion on my heart when I die,” he said. Of course, Chatterjee remained steadfastly wedded to communism till he breathed his last. But his eviction from the party was one episode that got closed with his passing.

The brilliant parliamentarian that he was, Chatterjee made friends irrespective of their ideological persuasions. Perhaps there were few parliamentarians who evoked unmitigated respect from veterans like Atal Bihari Vajpayee, LK Advani, Chandra Shekhar and PV Narasimha Rao. Once he was at the receiving end of Vajpayee’s temper in Lok Sabha in the 1990s. But the next day Vajpayee offered an unconditional apology and said that he never meant to insult his good friend “Somnath Dada”.

There is another instance of his run in with Vajpayee in his role as the speaker of the fourteenth Lok Sabha. The house had been facing a stand-off for days on end without resolution in sight. The Congress leader of the house, Pranab Mukherjee, was insisting that the BJP was not only subverting the parliamentary procedure but was also disrespectful to the speaker as well. Chatterjee took a position that was not acceptable to the BJP. In the din, Vajpayee shot off a stinging rebuke to the speaker in which he said, “Respect is commanded not demanded.” The obvious implication of the letter was that Chatterjee’s role as a Speaker was not above board.

This letter provoked angry exchanges as the Congress cited it as an instance of running down the institution of the speaker. Chatterjee however maintained his sagacity and said, “I am sure Vajpayeeji likes me and he is prompted by people (implying Advani) to write this letter.” Chatterjee was right as the draft of the letter was believed to be prepared at Advani’s office. However, the row got amicably settled when Chatterjee allowed the issue to die down by claiming that he held Vajpayee in high esteem.

As a successive member of the Lok Sabha since he inherited the Burdwan seat as political legacy of his father, Chatterjee was a permanent feature of the Lower House till 2009. His baritone interventions in the House used to be quite instructive and enriched the debate. Endowed with excellent gift of gab, he could be seen deftly negotiating with legacy of his father (Hindu Mahasabha background) and his own political position in the Lok Sabha. His smiling demeanour was quite encouraging to win friends across the party.

But there is no denying that he died as a disillusioned politician.

For an ideological party to which he proclaimed eternal loyalty, he was seen as highly compromised in his role as the Speaker. Perhaps one of the biggest blots of his career as politician in an otherwise unblemished track record was his presiding over a House in which MPs were bought over by the Manmohan government to seek a confidence vote on the India-US nuclear deal. The fact that Chatterjee was a wilful accomplice in what is known as the “cash-for-vote” scam is the biggest blot that he carried with him in his passing. In a four-decade long career, his eventful political life had seen twists and turns which were exceptional. But then Somnath Chatterjee was not an ordinary mortal.