You can remove Somnath Chatterjee from the party, but you can’t distance the party from his initiatives. This is the latest message for the CPI(M) as Chatterjee, the Lok Sabha Speaker, is going ahead with implementing one noble idea after another.
The latest initiative of Chatterjee’s office is to help the flood victims of Bihar. Recently, he wrote a letter to all Lok Sabha members requesting them to consider donating Rs 10 lakh from their Local Area Development (MPLAD) fund and one month’s salary for the flood victims.
Along with members from other parties, CPI(M) MPs too moved swiftly to accept the request. This assumes more significance because in the CPI(M), individual MPs don’t decide how to use their development fund. It is the party leadership that directs its MP on where he should spend the money in his constituency. The party that could not accept its comrade’s continuation in the Speaker’s chair found it had to fully support this initiative.
Mohammad Salim, deputy leader of the CPI(M) in the Lok Sabha, said, “We have forwarded the Speaker’s letter to our party leadership. The party has decided that all its MPs will donate Rs 10 lakh each and one month’s salary for the flood victims.”
Rules allow diversion of MPLAD funds to areas hit by natural calamities. Chatterjee, a member from West Bengal, has already donated his salary and Rs 10 lakh to Bihar.
Hannan Mollah, another prominent CPI(M) leader in the Lok Sabha, said, “According to the party’s decision, we have directed the bank officials to deduct one month’s salary of Rs 16,000 from my account and send it to the fund for flood victims.”
Although the CPI(M) expelled him on July 23, Chatterjee has continued to showcase his support, in compliance with his political ideology, for the developing world and the minorities — two pet causes of the CPI(M).
In August, soon after his summary dismissal from the party, he played an active role in the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and ensured that Malaysia’s Mohammad Shafie Apdal got elected to the secretary general’s post.
Chatterjee has also decided to impose austerity measures to help the flood victims. According to Parliament sources, the Speaker is not allowing study tours of standing committees attached to the Lok Sabha. His logic: This will save Parliament’s fund and can be used later for additional mobilization of resources for the flood-affected Bihar.
This time too, no one is complaining. Basudeb Acharia, the CPI(M) member heading the committee on railway told Business Standard, “We have to take the Speaker’s permission to go for study tours. Since he has decided against it, I might go alone to some places where it is absolutely necessary.”
Mollah, a key member of the standing committee on rural development, echoed similar sentiments: “I don’t know the details of how the unspent money will be given for flood relief, but yes, we are not undertaking any tours.”
