Somnath clarify remarks to Meira on her resigning from Cong

Former Speaker Somnath Chatterjee today said that he has not given any advice to Meira Kumar to resign from Congress but had only spoken of the need for convention for the incumbent to quit to avoid any "unhappy experience".

"I am greatly upset that some newspaper headlines today have wrongly attributed to me that I have been presumptuous enough to give advice to you or that I have suggested that you should or must resign from your party during your tenure as the Honable Speaker, Lok Sabha," he said in a letter to Kumar.

He was clarifying the reports that he had suggested that Kumar should quit her party while holding the Speaker's post so that political affiliation should not lead to a "conflict of interest".

Chatterjee said he was responding to a query, during a television interview, on the desirability of resigning from the party to which a Speaker may belong after his or her election.

"I clearly stated that as Speaker, when one sits on the Chair, one cannot either think or act in a partisan manner.

"However, in view of the most unhappy experience that I have had during my tenure, it may be better for the Speaker for the time being to consider, if at all, resigning  from his or her party during the tenure," he said in the letter, copies of which were released to the media.