Somnath’s family rejects CPI-M request to drape body with red flag
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.
ऐसी खबरें हैं कि हर दो साल पर आयोजित यह कार्यक्रम इस साल अक्टूबर-.नवंबर में लखनऊ में होगा. इससे पहले फरवरी 2017 में यह बेंगलुरू में हुआ था. हालांकि रक्षा मंत्रालय ने इस बारे में अभी तक कोई औपचारिक घोषणा नहीं की है.
केंद्रीय अल्पसंख्यक कार्य मंत्री ने कहा, ‘तीन तलाक एक सामाजिक कुरीति और कुप्रथा है और इसे धार्मिक और राजनीतिक नजरिए से देखना ठीक नहीं है’
केंद्रीय मंत्री मुख्तार अब्बास नकवी ने कहा कि मोदी सरकार का विकास का मसौदा, वोट का सौदा नहीं है. और तीन तलाक संबंधी विधेयक के पारित होने के मार्ग में बाधा डालकर कांग्रेस पार्टी वही गलती दोहरा रही है जो उसने 1985 में शाह बानो मामले में किया था.
अल्पसंख्यक कार्य मंत्री नकवी ने कहा, ‘तीन तलाक एक सामाजिक कुरीति और कुप्रथा है और इसे धार्मिक और राजनीतिक नजरिए से देखना ठीक नहीं है.’