Voice of India: Speaker Somnath shouldn't quit

LOUD SPEAKER: Somnath Chatterjee may quit CPI-M after the trust vote on July 22.

      

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Keywords: Left, Upa, Somnath Chatterjee, Face The Nation

Lok Sabha Speaker and senior CPI-M leader Somnath Chatterjee has written a letter to his party General Secretary Prakash Karat questioning the party's decision to vote along with the BJP during the Vote of Confidence on July 22.

The pressure to quit is beginning to show Chatterjee and sources say if push comes to shove, he won't just resign as the Speaker, but he might quit CPI-M itself.

However, by deciding to preside over the crucial trust vote, Chatterjee has managed to prove a point – even if momentarily – to the powers that be of the CPM.

But the larger question remains if he should quit as Speaker. CNN-IBN debated that point on Face the Nation with a panel comprising former Attorney General and noted jurist Soli Sorabjee; Congress Member of Parliament (MP) and Spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi; CPI-M MP and former Kerala Assembly Speaker Varakala Radhakrishnan; Communist Party of India National Secretary D Raja and Trinamool Congress Spokesperson Dinesh Trivedi. The debate was moderated by Vidya Shankar Aiyar.

Soli Sorabjee set the ball rolling and explained that there is no convention and practice in India that the Speaker should resign.

“Let’s be clear about one thing. The Speaker was elected by the House, he was not elected as a nominee of any particular political party. So therefore the question whether he should resign and when you say should, it implies whether there is any obligation under the Constitution. I see none. There is no convention; there is no practice that he should resign. It is a matter left entirely to him,” Sorabjee argued.

When asked if Chatterjee’s party has a right to interfere and to ask him to step down, Sorabjee said, “Well the party may not interfere, it may give him a direction. But one peculiar feature, which I find has not been adverted to so far is, suppose there is equality of votes. Speaker cannot take part, cannot vote but in the case there is an equality of votes, he has a casting vote. How will he cast that vote? He will be in a very awkward position. Surely his party would have issued a whip to all party members to vote against the trust vote. Will he go against that or will he go according to his conscience? He will put himself in a very awkward position. I think all that can be avoided if he really maintains his stand that he is not obliged to resign and that he does not want to resign.”

Trinamool Congress Spokesperson Dinesh Trivedi argued that the question of the Speaker stepping down was a moral question and not a legal one.

“I think it is very pure and simple hypocrisy of convenience. There are two issues. One is legal and one is moral. I am not on the legal issue because a Speaker can only be removed by impeachment. I am on morality. The morality is that his party has been instrumental in getting him where he is. You think all by himself he could have ever become a Speaker? So he must have the discipline to listen to his party. But the fact is, it is greed for power. He has enough roti (food) and kapda (clothes) but he has a palatial house. Nobody wants to quit that palatial house,” Trivedi said.

Trivedi also pointed out that if Chatterjee considered himself above the party politics, he should have quit from his party after he was elected as a Speaker.

“Well the fact is if he really wanted to be above the party, the day he was elected he should have resigned from the party. But the fact is and I have his official programme where when he was traveling in north India he used to visit the CPI-M office. He is a CPI-M man. Why did he come to Kolkata and meet Jyoti Basu? Why did he not go to Ram Krishna Mission to seek advice? When he writes a letter that ‘I cannot vote with the BJP’, even then as a Speaker he has a biased mind which is objectionable. So I think a Speaker who is biased should not be in that chair,” the Trinamool Congress leader said.