Former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee passes away at 89

Somnath Chatterjee, former Lok Sabha speaker died on Monday in Kolkata, he was 89 years old. The octogenarian politician was a 10-time parliamentarian. He was admitted in Kolkata’s Belle Veu Clinic on last Tuesday. Chatterjee was suffering from a kidney-related ailment and was put on life support after he suffered a mild cardiac arrest on Sunday morning. In the month of July he was admitted to a private hospital in Kolkata after suffering a hemorrhagic stroke.

Chatterjee began his political career in 1968 with the Communist Party of India Marxist (CPI-M) and remained as a member of the party till 2008. In 2008, CPI-M had to remove him from the party because he refused to resign from the post of Lower House Speaker after CPI-M withdrew its support from the Congress-led UPA-1 government over the India-US nuclear deal. Chatterjee was the 14th Lok Sabha speaker from 2004 to 2009.

Somnath Chatterjee was given the prestigious award of Outstanding Parliamentarian in 1996 for his overall contribution as an outstanding Sitting Member of parliament. In 1971, he entered the parliament for the first time as an independent candidate with the help of CPI-M. He represented several Lok Sabha seats from Bolpur, Bardhaman and Jadavpur.

He retired from active politics in 2009. Somnath Chatterje was also an advocate at the Calcutta High Court. During his stint as the Lok Sabha Speaker, Chatterjee had introduced some important norms, abolishing the practice of paying for toiletries and tea from the national exchequer.

The nation mourns gravely at his demise.