Kolkata:
Former Speaker Somnath Chatterjee has ruled out any possibility of applying to the CPM to return to the party.
After the Left debacle in the Lok Sabha polls and in the recent Assembly bypolls, a senior leader of the CPI-M had proposed at the party's state committee meeting last month that Somnath Chatterjee be brought back. Prakash Karat himself was present at the meeting.
But Chatterjee has ruled out any chance of him applying to the party for his reinstatement.
"Biman Bose, who is party secretary and Politburo member, has said (this)...since I have not applied, not said sorry, there is no scope of even thinking of revoking the expulsion...I am not keen at all...I am not going to do it...certainly not..." he said.
Somnath Chatterjee slammed the party's decision to expel him from the CPM because of his refusal to step down from the Speaker's post and pointed out that the party has paid for it.
"I am not going to apologise because I don't think I have done anything wrong. Consciously and unconsciously and even in retrospect I feel I was right and if they had accepted my position - in my view, they will not agree - the party's position would have gone up among the people. Today where is it? My agony is Left parties have become irrelevant...the alternative that was thought of by general secretary is almost a comic attempt in Indian politics and people have rebuffed it," Chatterjee said.