Please think

Please think of the country: Somnath

Former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee has called upon all intelligent and articulate young people not to repeat what a bright young woman had told him decades ago: "I would want to be anything but a politician." "Please think of the country. Nothing is more important," Chatterjee advised the new generation, making a pitch to them to get active in politics. He was speaking after the release of his book, Keeping the Faith: Memoirs of a Parliament -arian(HarperCollins India), by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in Delhi on Saturday evening. Chatterjee did not disappoint the capacity audience, which included UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. Speaking on his relations with the CPM, which had expelled him from the party after he had refused to toe its line on the confidence motion tabled by the government in the last Lok Sabha, he said: " I thank the CPM for making me their candidate in 11 elections. But when the party found that I had become unsuitable, I never questioned them, I never filed an appeal to review ( the decision)." The Prime Minister, in his speech, acknowledged the grace with which Chatterjee scripted his political journey. He said that becoming the Speaker may have been Chatterjee's " finest hour," but " one should not forget his many achievements and record of public service over the four decades that he spent in active politics on the national scene as a parliamentarian, party leader and voice of principle." Singh said he would often turn to Chatterjee to benefit from his " vast experience, political acumen and sage counsel". He added: " Shri Chatterjee and I had differing views on various issues and he refers to this in his book. But these differences in political ideology never came in the way of the close and fruitful personal association I have always had with him." Chatterjee said his " illustrious" successor, Meira Kumar, who was present on the dais, had already carved a niche for herself as the arbiter of the Lower House. Kumar reciprocated the compliment by pointing out that Chatterjee had become the Speaker during much more challenging times, when the world was waiting to see how India would handle the fractured mandate of the previous Lok Sabha. India Today Group Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Aroon Purie set the tone for the evening when he described the Marxist barrister-politician as not just another parliamentarian but " an exceptional one". Purie said: "His arguments, his wit, his questioning mind raised parliamentary debate to a higher level, and he never compromised on the sanctity of the House." Recalling Chatterjee's " finest hour"-when he refused to resign as Speaker despite pressure from the CPM-Purie said: " It was a battle between political bargaining and constitutional propriety. Fortunately for us, propriety won." It is not quite often, Purie said, that " purged communists" get a chance to write about their own life. " Usually, as we know, they end up as characters in books written by others. Mr Chatterjee, liberated from a party which in his own words has become irrelevant, has written his own story," Purie said. Chatterjee said it would be hard for him to write another book. Nevertheless, Purie suggested that Chatterjee's next be either a " primer for Speakers" or a manual on " how to be a good parliamentarian". HarperCollins India, he said, looked forward to it. (IndiaToday.in)