New Delhi, July 15
“We should not have included Speaker Somnath Chatterjee’s name in our list of MPs while withdrawing support from the UPA. Or, at least, there should have been an asterisk denoting his status as Speaker,” said Sitaram Yechury, Politburo member, in an interview to a private news channel.
The first cracks in the Left citadel are indeed beginning to show, with Chatterjee making his anguish known at his inclusion and Karat’s subsequent pressure on him to quit as Speaker.
Yechury said Chatterjee had been an MP for a record number of years and was indeed a Left MP. Asked about the pressure being put on him, Yechury maintained that the decision was entirely the Speaker’s to make. However, sources said it has been conveyed to Chatterjee that he should quit office before the vote of confidence on July 22 or he would be treated as a dissident.
Sources added that Chatterjee has consulted his colleagues and will follow the party diktat, albeit with a heavy heart. He is also learnt to be extremely upset with Karat’s wooing of UP Chief Minister Mayawati and the floor-coordination with the BJP.
A senior left leader said: “Karat has made our position untenable. We have virtually been reduced to a two carat party (pun on the husband wife duo of Brinda and Prakash Karat.’’
Yechury, however, denied that he had any differences with Karat. When asked if the withdrawal of support was akin to what Jyoti Basu had termed a “historical blunder’’ (politburo did not allow him to become PM) Yechury ducked the question and said the entire party was behind it.
Yechury also made it clear that the Left was extremely upset that the PMO was getting involved in the corporate warfare of the Ambani brothers. “The institution should not be drawn into such things. Even we don’t mind if someone comes and meets us, but for the PMO to mediate is wrong.”
Swati Chaturvedi, a TV journalist, often writes for The Tribune
