Chakraborty and Chatterjee

Jan. 13: CPM leader Prakash Karat today said there was no move to reinstate Somnath Chatterjee in the party, hours after Subhas Chakraborty revealed that he had sent such a request to the state leadership.

Transport minister Chakraborty, a CPM state committee member, had written to state party secretary Biman Bose last week, urging him to “take up the matter” with the central leadership.

“I feel the politburo ’s decision to expel Somnathda was wrong and that is why I wrote to Bimanda to take him back. I want Bimanda to take up the matter with the central committee,” Chakraborty said. “I shall treat you to sweets if he (Somnathda) is taken back,” he told reporters.

Chakraborty and Chatterjee are close to Jyoti Basu and the minister may well have been reflecting the veteran party leader’s views.

Karat, however, told The Telegraph: “This is all manufactured (the reported move to bring back Chatterjee). (There is) nothing in it.” He was replying to a question on reports that some Bengal leaders wanted the Speaker back in the party.

But politburo member Sitaram Yechury said the central committee could “discuss the proposal if it comes from the state committee”. Chakraborty seized on the comment to say: “I’m really happy. Yechury has realised Somnathda’s importance.”

Chatterjee dismissed as “hypothetical” the question of his return but added that “I won’t appeal”, according to PTI.

Sources in Delhi said “no one had raised the issue at the recent central committee meeting or the state secretariat of the Bengal unit”. The sources said there was “no discussion” at “any level” of the party about Chatterjee.

The party constitution does not mention provisions to take back an expelled member. But an exception was made in the case of Nripen Chakraborty, who was expelled in 1995 and reinstated two days before his death in 2004.

The CPM had expelled Chatterjee for refusing to toe the party line and resign as Speaker ahead of the trust vote in Parliament.

Chakraborty said he was “just conveying the sentiments of many of our party men in Bengal who have not accepted the politburo’s stand”.

Speaker Hashim Abdul Halim also felt that it would be good “if Somnathda is taken back in the party”.