Kolkata: The CPI-M on Friday said it had appealed
to all, including expelled leader Somnath Chatterjee, to
campaign for the party in the coming West Bengal Assembly
elections, but was evasive on the question of taking him back
to the party fold.
"We are appealing to everybody to campaign for us and
Somnath Chatterjee is one of them. Now it is up to him
(Chatterjee) to respond," CPI-M politburo member Sitaram
Yechury told a press conference at the party office here.
He was commenting on the party`s central committee member
Gautam Deb`s request to Chatterjee to attend and address an
election meeting in his assembly constituency at Dum Dum on
April 24.
Asked if appeal to Chatterjee to campaign for the party
was any indication that he would be taken back to CPI-M and if
the party will revoke his expulsion for anti-party activity,
he said, "This is not an issue which can be discussed here...
This is election time."
Gautam Deb on Thursday questioned the party`s decision to
expel the Marxist veteran and said there was no provision in
the CPI-M constitution that an expelled leader could not not
be taken back to the party fold.
Chatterjee, when contacted at his Santiniketan residence,
said yesterday that Deb had made a personal request to him to
adddress his poll meeting in Dum Dum constituency on April 24.
"I am not keeping well. If the doctor allows me, I shall
try to keep his (Deb`s) request," Chatterjee said.
PTI
