Somnath excluded from party whip

The Bengal CPI(M) otherwise rallied behind Prakash Karat on whether Speaker Somnath Chatterjee should resign and vote against the government, ahead of its state committee and Left Front meeting today, with transport minister Subhas Chakrabarty filing an apology for saying that he felt Chatterjee should not resign and that the CPI(M) should not vote with the BJP in the no-confidence motion to be put to vote in Parliament on July 22.

CPI(M) sources said Karat and his group would have been happier if Somnath Chatterjee had been included in the whip but relented in view of the fact that the Bengal group had earlier accepted their request to send non-Bengal CPI(M) leaders like Brinda Karat and Sitaram Yechury to Parliament, ignoring the aspirations of eminent Left leaders from Bengal.

Pro-Somnath leaders here indicated that the Speaker was so upset that he could have resigned from the CPI(M) if forced on the issue, but this was dismissed by others in the CPI(M) as posturing.

Chakrabarty was a prot