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Somnath violated party discipline, says Biman Bose

KOLKATA: “All members of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) are required to abide by the party constitution,” Biman Bose, secretary of the West Bengal State Committee, said here on Wednesday. “When one is accepted as a member of the CPI(M), he is expected to abide by the rules and regulations of the constitution and work for the interests of the toiling people … If this is not followed, the party is to sever connections with that particular [errant] member as stated in the party constitution,” Mr. Bose said ahead of the Polit Bureau announcement of the expulsion of Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee from the party.

Mr. Bose said Mr. Chatterjee’s action in continuing as Speaker even after the CPI(M) withdrew support to the United Progressive Alliance government was “tantamount to violation of party discipline.”

“We had accepted the proposal of the UPA to make Mr. Chatterjee Speaker as we were then supporting the alliance from outside. Subsequently we became the Opposition … we cannot [under the changed circumstances] keep him as Speaker on behalf of the CPI(M).”

Mr. Bose dismissed the suggestion that the controversy surrounding the continuance of Mr. Chatterjee as Speaker impacted the party leadership in the State as “the creation of a section of the media.”

Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee described the CPI(M) leadership’s decision to expel Mr. Chatterjee as “meaningless and valueless.” “The party should have taken it earlier. Why did it not do it before the trust vote,” she asked, adding: “We [political parties] are all in favour of party discipline [being maintained]”.

Mr. Chatterjee “was first an MP and then Speaker,” Ms. Banerjee said. He should have resigned when his party withdrew support to the government and submitted its list of MPs to the President.

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