Somnath says no

While many politicians lobby to get a Rajya Sabha berth, former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee has politely turned down a proposal from the government to become a nominated member of the Upper House. According to top sources in the government, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was keen to bring Chatterjee — who played a crucial role during the government’s tension with the Left parties over the Indo-US nuclear deal and defied his party’s diktat to resign from the Speaker’s chair — in the Rajya Sabha. But Chatterjee told Congress managers that after having been Speaker, he did not see merit in occupying the back benches of the Rajya Sabha.