Whip does not apply to Chatterjee : Bose
The CPI(M) said that the whip issued by it to its MPs for voting against the UPA Govt on July 22 did not apply to Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee.
The CPI(M) on Friday said that the whip issued by it to its MPs for voting against the UPA government on July 22 did not apply to Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee.
"The Speaker is above any whip," CPI(M) Politburo member Biman Bose told reporters after a secretariat meeting of the party.
Though there was no official word from the party about the deliberations, the marxist leaders, including Bose and Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, were understood to have discussed the situation ahead of the trust vote and the controversy over Chatterjee.
Bose said that there was no discussion on the reservations of expressed by party leader and West Bengal Transport Minister Subhash Chakrabarty against voting alongside BJP in the trust vote as he had admitted that he should not have spoken out publicly.
95-year-old CPI(M) patriarch Jyoti Basu, who is not keeping well, did not attend the meeting.