Fissure in the Left, Bengal minister backs Somnath

SPEAKER SEES RED: Somnath Chatterjee has been told to abide by the party line by CPM patriarch Jyoti Basu.

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Keywords: UPA, Jyoti Basu

New Delhi: In what is being seen as the first sign of revolt within the Left, West Bengal Minister for Sports and Youth Affairs Subhas Chakraborty backed Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and said he should not quit as the Speaker before the trust vote in Parliament.

Chakraborty also said that the CPI-M should not vote with the BJP on the Indo-US nuclear deal as “voting with the saffron party will harm our party’s interests”.

“We can't be equated with BJP to fight American imperialism. This is my own view and my own understanding and everyone has the right to have his view. I agree with Somnath Chaterjee's view and I have given my view to my party,” Chakraborty added.

Meanwhile, amid mounting pressure from within the Left, Chatterjee had a prolonged meeting with the Marxist patriarch Jyoti Basu who is understood to have advised him to abide by the party line.

After the 50-minute meeting between Basu and Chatterjee, party insiders said that the former West Bengal chief minister played the role of a crisis manager persuading the Speaker to follow the party as the Left parties had already withdrawn support to the UPA Government.

Chatterjee’s name was given by CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat as one of the 44 MPs who were withdrawing support to the Government. But the Speaker made it clear that if he is forced to resign from his post, then he will give up his Lok Sabha membership as well.

In a statement released recently, Chatterjee had claimed that the Speaker doesn’t belong to any political party. In fact CNN-IBN has learnt that he is upset with the inclusion of his name without his consent.