The former Lok Sabha Speaker, Somnath Chatterjee, on Saturday hit out at the Communist Party of India (Marxist) saying the charges it levelled against him were “character assassination” and the current political culture of the present leadership made the party and Left politics “almost irrelevant.”
In a three-page hard-hitting statement here, Mr. Chatterjee, who was expelled from the CPI(M), referred to a rejoinder published in party mouthpiece People’s Democracy recently accusing him of levelling baseless charges against the party and said he was “amazed at the deliberate distortion of facts.”
Denial
He said he had never stated that “the Left had some foreknowledge that the ‘cash-for-vote’ row during the trust motion would come up in Parliament nor had I insinuated that there was some coordination between the BJP and the Left in this matter.
“I get the impression that in its anxiety to justify its unfathomable decision which has brought the party to its present sorry state, the CPI(M) has made a desperate effort to indulge in character assassination.”
Third Front move flayed
Mr. Chatterjee criticised the party leadership for forging a Third Front “with disparate elements with the ridiculous assurance to its members that it would come to power and would provide opportunity to the party’s general secretary even to head such a government.”
He said sections of supporters and members of the CPI(M) had extreme reservation about the efforts of the central leadership to cobble up a Third Front.
“They were bewildered at the almost desperate and comic attempts of the leadership to come closer to certain political outfits, many of which are embodiments of crime and corruption in politics. Even the diehard supporters of the party could not countenance such deviations in its policies and basic philosophy.”
Calumny alleged
Recalling his long association with the CPI(M), he said the rejoinder was a clear attempt to indulge in “deliberate falsehood, calumny and character assassination” to justify the party’s untenable action against a member “who had without self-interest been in the State committee and Central committee.”
He said it was now well-known that a large section of the party had not supported his arbitrary expulsion and claimed that many members and active supporters of the CPI(M) were still maintaining close touch with him.
Mr. Chatterjee said though many had urged him to give his views on his expulsion, he had refrained from doing so.
“I did not make any allegation against the party and admitted that the party had the right to expel me and there was no occasion for me at all to ask for a review of the same or to file an appeal.”
Erosion of support
“I had hoped that the party leadership at the highest level would do some introspection and would try to find out why it is now in splendid isolation and why the party even in West Bengal and Kerala, the two major States where only it has its existence, are today facing such serious erosion of popular support,” he said.
Mr. Chatterjee said his expulsion exposed not only the intolerance shown by the present party leadership, but also its wrong understanding of the Speaker’s role in a parliamentary democracy.
Travesty of truth
“It is a travesty of truth to allege that I had condoned criminal activities committed within the precincts of the chamber. I can humbly claim that no other presiding officer in the past had tried to get rid of the corrupt and criminal elements from the Lok Sabha as much as I did, and that too, successfully.
“If the CPI(M) leaders had proof that hundreds of crores of rupees were spent to purchase MPs belonging to the Opposition, then it was the duty of the party to disclose the facts before the nation. I had not condoned any act of impropriety,” Mr. Chatterjee said.
He said the present CPI(M) leadership had a “guilty conscience because of its abysmal failure in conducting the affairs of the party and is now trying to find excuses for its total rejection even by the common people.”
