The Left parties met the president on 9 July 2008 to apprise her about the withdrawal of support and requested her to either dismiss the government or direct it to submit to a vote of confidence in the house. That morning, Prakash Karat rang me to convey that members of the politburo who were in Delhi, including some comrades from West Bengal, were of the view that in the prevailing circumstances my continuance as Speaker would be ‘untenable’ and that I should decide my own course of action.
On the same day, I sent a note to Karat with my views on some of the issues he described as “untenable” and suggested a few alternate courses of action. But there was neither any acknowledgement nor any response to my views, thus indicating that he did not find the same worth taking note of. Apart from that, Karat never tried to contact me.
Later in the day, I came to know that in the list of CPI(M) members withdrawing support to the government, which was submitted to the president, my name was mentioned first. I was shocked!
Strangely, till today I have not been shown a copy of this letter. There was intense media speculation about my possible resignation, which was neither called for nor consistent with the position of the Speaker. The general secretary himself had stated in public, at the press conference held after the formal withdrawal of support, that it was for me as the Speaker to decide the future course of action.
To quell the speculation, my office issued a statement on 10 July 2008, stating:
“The attention of Shri Somnath Chatterjee, the hon’ble Speaker of Lok Sabha, has been drawn to the various media reports which have been published or telecast about his continuance in office.
The hon’ble Speaker does not represent any political party in the discharge of his duties and functions. It is well known that the present Speaker’s election to his high office was not only uncontested but was unanimous as all political parties proposed his name. He was not elected as the nominee of any party. In the discharge of his duties and functions he does not owe allegiance to any political party. Since his election as Speaker, Shri Somnath Chatterjee has scrupulously kept himself away from all political activities.
It is requested that the media not drag the highest legislative office of the country into controversies by speculative reports and undeserved innuendos. as and when any decision is taken by the hon’ble Speaker, relevant to the present political context, the media will be kept informed.”
Earlier, as already stated, Karat had specifically told me that the party had not taken any decision about me. Apart from what he stated clearly at the press conference on 9 July 2008, he issued the following statement on 14 July 2008:
“A lot of speculation is going on in the media regarding the position of the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Comrade Somnath Chatterjee. I have 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 10 July 2008. We do not want the office of the Speaker being dragged into any unnecessary controversy.”
In response to the keen interest shown by the media and other political parties about my future course of action and about the propriety of including my name in the list of members withdrawing support, Sitaram Yechury, member of the politburo of the CPI(M), issued the following statement on 16 July 2008:
“A disinformation campaign on the issue of the inclusion of the Lok Sabha Speaker’s name in the CPI(M) MPs’ list submitted to the President of India is doing the rounds. What I had said is that the Speaker’s name should be included in the CPI(M) list as he was elected as a CPI(M) candidate but with an asterisk denoting that currently he is the Lok Sabha Speaker, as is the normal Parliamentary practice.”
Two reports appeared in the Times of India on 18 July 2008, based on an interview with Karat in which he said, “On the day we withdrew support from the UPA government, I had stated in a press conference that it is for the Speaker to take a decision on the matter. I have maintained this all through. As for the role of the Speaker, I wish to make our party’s views clear. By holding the post of the Speaker, a person does not cease to have political affiliations. but when someone becomes a Speaker, he/she should not indulge in party activities, or adopt partisan political positions.”
AB Bardhan, general secretary of the CPI, stated that “the Left ally should not have included the name of Lok Sabha Speaker, Somnath Chatterjee, in the list of party MPs withdrawing support to the UPA government. He is a veteran leader and Parliamentarian and he should decide on this matter on his own. Dragging Chatterjee into the resignation controversy was an attack on the dignity of the high post held by him. I agree the Speaker was elected on a CPM ticket. But he was elected Speaker to the Lok Sabha with the support of all parties.”
I was told by media persons that the guessing game about my resignation was due to leaks from AKG Bhavan, the CPI(M) headquarters. It was a matter of great agony for me. On the one hand, the general secretary of the party had made repeated public statements that it was for me to decide my future course of action after the withdrawal of support by the CPI(M); on the other, a whisper campaign suggesting that I would soon be directed to resign appeared to have been engineered by the party itself.
Throughout my political career, I have received a lot of guidance and affection from Jyoti Basu, who had been, till his last day, my undisputed leader. In view of the controversy, I felt I should take his opinion at that critical juncture.
I met him in Kolkata on 12 July 2008 and showed him my communication with the party. Of course he was fully aware of the party’s stand on the deal and I had no discussion with him on the same. I also had no idea whether he agreed with the party’s stand.
But he advised me that I should preside over the proceedings of the house on the confidence motion. My resignation, he felt as I too believed, would suggest that I was compromising my position as the Speaker and was allowing my actions to be dictated by my political party, which would be wholly unethical and contrary to the basic tenets of parliamentary democracy, of which the Lok Sabha was and is the supreme body in our country. It would also compromise the position of the party itself, which would come across as not truly committed to the country’s democratic polity based on the Parliamentary system, despite taking part and benefiting from it.
He further advised me that I could take a decision after the trust vote and the annual Professor Hiren Mukherjee Parliamentary Lecture on 11 August 2008 which, as I told him, I had as Speaker arranged to be delivered by Professor Amartya Sen. This strengthened my resolve to carry on my duty as Speaker at least till the date of the trust vote and not to buckle under pressure.
If i remember correctly, around 15–16 July 2008, Sitaram Yechury came to my residence and talked to me about the developing political situation, without mentioning any decision that might have been taken by the party in my case. Yechury possibly wanted to ascertain what was on my mind. I informed him about what had transpired during my meeting with Jyoti Basu, who, as I was told by a reliable source, had himself sent a handwritten note to the general secretary in this regard.
I do not know whether this note was formally placed at the politburo meeting or circulated among the members or not. I presume it was done. While leaving my house, Yechury vaguely indicated that I might receive a communication from the party. This convinced me that the party had taken or would take the decision to ask me to resign.
Significantly, after 9 July 2008, Karat did not speak to me but as mentioned, he more than once publicly mentioned that the decision had been left to me. It was only on 20 July 2008 that Biman Bose, secretary of the West Bengal State Committee of the party and a member of the politburo, contacted me. He came to my residence around 1 pm and informed me that both the central committee and the politburo had decided that I should not continue as Speaker and that I should resign and vote against the government.
I realised that media speculation about the party having taken a decision, contrary to its repeated public pronouncements, had a solid basis. By then i had already made up my mind, as advised by the most important leader of the CPI(M), Jyoti Basu, not to tender my resignation until the debate on the trust vote was over.
Accordingly, I told Biman Bose that i could not accept the party’s directive since i did not wish to make the office of the Speaker a victim of political manoeuvrings. I told him that no Speaker could or should be at the mercy of the dictates of his party, even though he or she had been elected as an MP as its candidate and remained committed to its ideologies. I reminded him that throughout the fourteenth Lok Sabha, since my election as Speaker, I had dissociated myself from all political activity.
I wondered why the general secretary had stated, as late as on 18 July 2008, that it was for me to decide my course of action. Obviously, Biman Bose was not pleased but he did not enter into any argument with me. About an hour later, I got a telephone call from him that I need not cast my vote on the confidence motion but that I must resign from the office of Speaker. I told him clearly that I could not accept his suggestion.
On 21 and 22 July 2008, the motion of confidence moved by the Prime Minister was debated and approved. The first thing the party did the following day was to hold a meeting of five local members of the politburo which has a total membership of seventeen. I presume that no notice was given to the others of the said meeting. On 23 July 2008, the following statement was issued by the party:
“The politburo of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has unanimously decided to expel Somnath Chatterjee from the membership of the party with immediate effect. This action has been taken under Article XIX, Clause 13 of the party constitution for seriously compromising the position of the party.”
Later, I understood that even among those five members, the decision had been taken by a majority.
Of course, I cannot vouch for it. Obviously, leaders of the CPI(M)’s politburo viewed my commitment to the important constitutional position of the Speaker as “untenable”, and my refusal to resign as an act of defiance. Since my election as Speaker, I had not thought it possible for the party to give me any directives. If I had any inkling of this, I would have formally given up my ordinary membership for the period I remained Speaker. Against this backdrop, I feel that a convention should evolve that during one’s tenure as Speaker, a member may temporarily resign from the membership of his or her party, so as not to be faced with the unenviable situation I was confronted with.
It was most surprising and unbecoming of a principled party like the CPI(M), which I always believed never misled the people, that its general secretary and some of his close colleagues would take a totally misleading position for public consumption, while at the same time confabulating among themselves to force me as Speaker to accept a subservient role to the party, even if such a step transgressed all principles of constitutional propriety.
Although I had anticipated that the party would take some disciplinary action against me, I never thought it would be done in such haste. What happened was nothing short of arbitrary. I had believed that at least a show-cause notice would be given or an explanation would be asked for, especially since I had served the party for nearly forty years with all sincerity and devotion. Unfortunately, that was not to be.
Excerpted with permission from Keeping The Faith: Memoirs Of A Parliamentarian, Somnath Chatterjee, HarperCollins India.
