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Yechury: it’s disinformation

NEW DELHI: Even as the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury clarified his party’s position on the controversy related to the Speaker of the Lok Sabha Somnath Chatterjee, the Congress party and the Bharatiya Janata Party also expressed their views on the subject.

On Wednesday Mr. Yechury issued the following statement: “A disinformation campaign on the issue of the inclusion of the Lok Sabha Speaker’s name in the CPI (M) MPs list submitted to the President of India is doing the rounds. What I had said is that the Speaker’s name should be included in the CPI (M) list as he was elected as a CPI (M) candidate but with an asterisk denoting that currently he is the Lok Sabha Speaker, as is the normal parliamentary practice.”

He was referring to the controversy over the inclusion of Mr. Chatterjee’s name in the list of MPs of the CPI (M) submitted to President Pratibha Patil when the Left parties withdrew their support to the United Progressive Alliance.

Congress spokesperson Jayanti Natarajan condemned the attempt to politicise the Speaker’s office. She described the controversy as “unsavoury” and “has the potential to create a dangerous precedent.”

If such a precedent were to be set – of the Speaker resigning because his party wants him to – “every political dispute in Parliament and the state legislatures involving the ruling and the opposition benches would lead to resignations of presiding officers to help fulfil the agenda of the original party on whose ticket the presiding officer was elected to the legislature”.

This, she said, was a “prescription for the destruction of parliamentary democracy since no presiding officer could then enjoy a secure term.” Praising Mr. Chatterjee’s conduct of proceedings in the Lok Sabha over the last four years, she said he had shown commitment to the Constitution and the rules of procedure.

Any Speaker would naturally be elected to the Assembly or the Lok Sabha as a candidate of a political party, but when elected he is expected “to rise above party affiliation and serve as Speaker in a non-partisan manner.”

Her appeal to all those who may be concerned about the issue was “to refrain from politicising and diminishing the office of the Speaker.”

BJP spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy found fault with the Speaker on the basis of news reports suggesting that he was “reluctant to resign and vote along with the BJP [as an MP of the CPI(M)] when the confidence motion to be moved by the Prime Minister comes up for voting on July 22.”

Mr. Rudy said: “If the reports are true, then Mr. Chatterjee has expressed a bias towards a political party, that is, the BJP. How can he then claim to be non-partisan? How can he occupy the exalted position of the Speaker, which he himself has described as a non-partisan position.”

He demanded that the Speaker clarify his position on his reported comment that he would not like to vote along with the BJP.

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