Son of a Hindu Mahasabha leader to become CPM MP; faces defeat from Mamata

New Delhi, Aug 13: Former Lok Sabha Speaker was a staunch Communist Party of India (Marxist) warhorse till the very moment he was expelled from the party for allegedly not toeing the party line on the issue of India's nuclear deal with the United States. But before thrusting anything on him, the CPI (M) leaders should have looked upon his past.

The son of All India Hindu Mahasabha leader chose to decide his own course to become Lok Sabha Speaker in 2004 and 10-time Lok Sabha MP. He was the man of his conviction if he did not follow the line of his father, why would he follow the line suggested by his party colleagues that he found erroneous.

His father was a lawyer at Supreme Court of India and a judge at the Calcutta High Court. His mother was Binapani and elder brother Debnath Chatterjee. But the Marxist Parliamentarian Somnath Chatterjee was fiercely anti-Hindutva leader from the West Bengal who served as Speaker of the 14th Lok Sabha from 2004 to 2009.

Somnath's father Nirmal Chandra Chatterjee had become the President of All India Hindu Mahasabha and presided over Gwalior session at the time of partition in 1947.

The emergence of Bharatiya Janata party on the horizon of Indian politics, the debate over nationalist have become very common. On the debate of nationalism and Hindutva, he was always teased. In one such debate the present external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj pointing out towards Somnath Chatterjee said, "Cultural nationalism of the country can very well be understood by the fact that if someone from the eastern part of the country keeps name of his son from the religious deity of the western part of the country, this is what is cultural nationalism." Sonath is a Jyotirlinga placed in Gujarat.

Somnath Chaterjee was the leader who was defeated only once that to on the hands of political a green horn in 1984 to Mamata Banerjee. However 1984 elections were little different with the assassination of former Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi. Now Mamata Banerjee is the chief minister of the state.