Former Lok Sabha Speaker and expelled CPI(M) leader Somnath Chatterjee on Sunday sent a letter to Trinamul Congress chief and chief minister designate Mamata Banerjee, congratulating her on her victory in the Assembly elections. “Yes I have written to her offering my good wishes on her remarkable electoral victory,” he confirmed.
When asked if it was not a little surprising that he had sent her a congratulatory missive considering that he still had a lot of affection for his former party, Mr Chatterjee said, “Since the people of the state have given her their mandate, I found nothing wrong in extending my best wishes to her.”
Interestingly, in the run-up to the election campaign, Mr Chatterjee had expressed his anguish over what he described as the “demonisation” of the Left Front. He even went to the extent of campaigning for CPI(M) candidates Gautam Deb in Dum Dum and Fuad Halim in central Kolkata.
Moreover, it was at the hands of then a greenhorn Ms Banerjee that Mr Chatterjee had lost his Jadavpur Lok Sabha seat in 1984 and the memory of that defeat must still be rankling him. But the thorough gentleman that Mr Chatterjee is, he sent his message of goodwill to the Trinamul Congress chief. “She was gracious enough to call me up and thank me for the message. She inquired about my health and said that she would soon visit me,” Mr Chatterjee said.