Kolkata, May 25
The CPM Politburo ultimately agreed to Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s offer of the Lok Sabha Speakership to Mr Somnath Chatterjee after much dilly-dallying and the day-long deliberations.
By obtaining clearance from the Politburo of Mr Chatterjee’s Speakership, the old guards once again established their supremacy in the party over the young guards who had been strongly opposed to Mr Chatterjee’s taking over as Speaker.
But it was not an easy task for the old guards like Mr Jyoti Basu and Mr Harkishen Singh Surjeet to get the proposal endorsed by the leadership. In fact, the proposal was placed for voting and it ultimately was passed by eight members in favour and six against. In all 14 members were present at today’s meeting.
The Politburo, however, did not endorse the Congress draft resolution on the common minimum programme (CMP) and the party wanted more time for discussions on certain points.
The Politburo apart, the CPI, the Forward Bloc and the RSP also approved the decision of electing Mr Chatterjee as Lok Sabha Speaker.
The CPM leadership also did not decide today as to who would be the next leader in the Lok Sabha in place of Mr Chatterjee. The Bengal unit wanted Mr Basudev Acharya, the deputy leader, to take over as leader. But the Kerala unit favoured that Mr Vijayan be made the leader in the Lok Sabha in place of Mr Chatterjee.
The party leadership will meet again tomorrow in Delhi to discuss its relation with the functioning of the Congress-led coalition government at the Centre. Both the Bengal Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, and Mr Biman Bose, important Politburo leader, made it clear that they would not be the silent spectators to any mischief the Congress may commit in the future. They said they would act as watchdog and, if necessary, withdraw their support to the new government if it perused once again anti-people and pro-capitalist policies of the past.
Incidentally, Mr Chatterjee will be the first Speaker of the Lok Sabha from Bengal since Independence. Till today, he had been the party’s leader in the Lok Sabha.
