About the Book
Somnath Chatterjee has had one of the longest innings of any MP in the Lok Sabha,
being elected to it for the first time in 1971. Since then, he has been a Member
of Parliament in all successive Lok Sabhas, getting elected for the tenth time
in 2004 to the fourteenth Lok Sabha. From 1989 till 2004, he was the leader of
the CPI(M) in the Lok Sabha, and was its Speaker from 2004 to 2009. In this
candid, heartfelt memoir, Chatterjee looks back on his eventful three-and-ahalf
decades in the Indian Parliament, capturing all the highs and lows as a nation’s
history was shaped, and revealing many behind the-scenes stories for the first
time. Among other things, Chatterjee discusses why he chose not to resign as
Speaker of the Lok Sabha when his party, the CPI(M), withdrew support from the
Manmohan Singh-led UPA government in 2008 over the Indo-US nuclear deal. He also
discusses the subsequent confidence vote that he presided over and how he was
treated by the party for which he had worked all his life.
About the Author
Born in Tezpur, Assam, in 1929, Somnath Chatterjee was educated in Calcutta and
the United Kingdom. He began his career as a lawyer and joined active politics
in 1968, when he became a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
Starting in 1971, he was a permanent fixture in the Lok Sabha, retiring from
politics in 2009 when his term as Lok Sabha Speaker ended.