Case for Speaker’s disqualification

This is the comment I sent to The Hindu on the article "Case for Speaker’s disqualification” by V. Venkatesan, dated July 30, 2008. The article was written to attack Mr.Chatterjee to please someone. It is a dumb article.
I am sure, it won't be published.

The “Case for Speaker’s disqualification” by V. Venkatesan (July 30) assumes that Mr.Somnath Chatterjee had “voluntarily given up his membership” of the CPI(M). But, since Mr.Chatterjee, unlike Dr.Barbosa, did not resign from the party, the argument, it seems, is that by defying the party whip, he had voluntarily forfeited his membership. If that is true, what was the need for the CPI(M) to dismiss him from the party?
A whip is usually issued to demand voting on a certain side or abstention, but it cannot cover a Speaker as he does not normally have the right or obligation to vote. Casting vote is an extraordinary device he can use only to break a deadlock in the House.
According to PART V, CH.II, ARTICLE 94 of the Constitution, Speaker’s office will be vacated only in two contingencies: through resignation, or through removal by a resolution moved after a minimum of fourteen days’ notice and passed by a majority of the Members present in the House. Defying party whip is not one among them. It goes further to state that even when “the House of the People is dissolved, the Speaker shall not vacate his office until immediately before the first meeting of the House of the People after the dissolution”. Equating him with the other Members of the House is, therefore, incorrect.
P.P.Sudhakaran
Bangalore