With his long and chequered legal paractitioner's background, it is not surprising to see Somnath Chatterjee trying to raise various legal angles to justify his defiance of the directive from his party which gave him all possible support to come up to his present stature as a seasoned politician and parliamentarian. Perhaps in his moment of far-reaching decision he conveniently decided to forget that he swore to abide by the rule book of the CPI-M when he joined the party and he was clearly not prepared to forego the authority and prestige enjoyed by the LS Speaker, alongwith various accompanying perks, when the same party's top leadership asked him to step down as the Speaker. It is common knowledge that dedicated communists uphold their loyalty to the party's final decisions overcoming personal dissents or reservations and Somnath's audacious decision to defy the directive of the highest forum of his party can possibly be a fall-out of his conviction that he was not really bound by the party's decisions which are unpalatable to him. So, was Somnath wearing all these years a communist mask to avail of an effective spring-board for elevating himself to various positions of authority in public life ?
