Somnath Chatterjee meets Jyoti Basu

Kolkata, July 13 : Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee today met former West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu at his residence in Kolkata to discuss the political situation arising in national politics over the Indo-US civil nuclear deal.

The Speaker, who arrived here from New Delhi this morning, held a 50-minute meeting with Basu.

However, Chatterjee did not talk to the media after meeting the Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Jyoti Basu.

According to sources, Chatterjee sought Basu's opinion on resigning from the Lok Sabha Speaker's post.

It is being said that Chatterjee is not keen to resigning from the speaker's post as he feels that the Speaker's chair is a neutral chair.

Basu, according to sources, is believed to have persuaded Chatterjee to toe the party line in the wake of the recent Left withdrawal of support to the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government.

Chatterjee also expressed his difference of opinion to the CPI (M) party General Secretary Prakash Karat and allegedly had a discussion with him in a closed door meeting in Delhi.

Earlier in the day, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee met the veteran CPI (M) leader Jyoti Basu at his residence in Kolkata to explain the reasons leading to the break-up of the 51-month UPA-Left coalition.

Mukherjee said that despite political differences they share a very good relationship.

He described Basu and Harkishan Singh Surjeet as the two key figures in forming UPA-Left alliance so it was his responsibility to explain the situation, which broke the four-year alliance. By Soma Mitra

ANI