Agencies
NEW DELHI, Jul 23: According to media reports, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee has been expelled from CPM for violating party discipline.
Earlier in the day, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) politburo met on Wednesday amid strong indications that disciplinary action is to be taken against Somnath Chatterjee for not resigning as the Lok Sabha Speaker ahead of the trust vote the government won overnight.
A former member of the CPM central committee, Chatterjee refused to quit the Speaker's chair after the Left parties withdrew support to the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government following differences with the ruling Congress over the India-US civil nuclear deal.
Chatterjee presided over the special session of Parliament in defiance of CPM general secretary Prakash Karat, who did not want Chatterjee to be in the Speaker's chair after the Left stopped supporting the government.
The CPM central committee, which met July 19 and 20 to discuss the political crisis emanating from the nuclear row, had authorised the politburo - its highest decision making body - to take action against Chatterjee.
"The central committee had authorised the politburo to go ahead," said a CPM source.
The Speaker is scheduled to leave on a 10-day trip to Kuala Lumpur on August 1 to attend a meeting of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.
Chatterjee, a Cambridge-trained barrister, took to politics in 1968 and was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time in 1971.