Somnath Chatterjee is hurt. In a statement seven days after his expulsion from the CPI(M) — the party he had sworn by for more than 40 years — the Lok Sabha speaker had said July 23 [when the CPI(M) threw him out] was “one of the saddest days of my life”. But that wasn’t the end. The wounds are still fresh and sometimes they bleed in public.
Eight-time Lok Sabha member Hannan Mollah was one of Chatterjee’s closest comrades (himself a 10-term Lok Sabha MP). The two have spent more than 35 years together in Parliament and the party.
Last Thursday, Mollah had to attend a meeting of the local Bengal Association with ‘Somnathda’. From the moment the meeting began to the time it ended, insiders said, Chatterjee didn’t look at Mollah even once.
Before Mollah’s turn came to speak, Chatterjee, who had presided over the meeting, chose not even to announce his name. “Now the Member of Parliament will speak” is all Chatterjee said.
Mollah is one of the prominent members of the CPI(M)’s Central Committee which decided Chatterjee’s punishment for defying the party.
Somnath loyalists consider party general secretary Prakash Karat the main force behind his expulsion. On two occasions, the Speaker came face to face with Karat after the incident: at a Noida hospital after Harkishen Singh Surjeet’s death and recently, at JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav’s luncheon party. Eyewitnesses say they exchanged the coldest ‘namaskars’ on earth at both places.
Till a few months back, most of the CPI(M) parliamentarians (except the likes of Varkala Radhakrishnan) used to call up Chatterjee frequently to take tips on Parliamentary strategy. Those days are now over. There has not been a Lok Sabha session after the Marxist’s lay-off from the party for ‘seriously compromising’ its position. When it meets on October 17, there is bound to be vicarious interest in Chatterjee’s body language.
It is not that Chatterjee has cut off all his relations with all his old comrades. On his birthday (just a few days after the ouster), the Speaker had a telephone conversation with Politburo member Sitaram Yechury, who was the only CPI(M) leader to wish him on that happy occasion.
It isn’t that just Chatterjee is lonely. Many of his erstwhile colleagues cannot understand how he chose to turn away from ideals he had held dear for 40 years, just for the post he was holding.
“I think the issue of voting against the UPA was just a flashpoint. Chatterjee was mainly hurt when the party didn’t consider his name for the President or Vice-President’s candidature,” said a politburo member.
Somnath Chatterjee is hurt by the behaviour of his ex-comrades. As are many of them, with his.
