Former Lok Sabha Speaker and CPM veteran Somnath Chatterjee breathed his last on Monday morning at a Kolkata hospital after battling kidney ailment. He was 89 years old and had suffered a mild cardiac arrest, reports said.
On Sunday, the health condition of the former Lok Sabha Speaker was said to be critical. The CPM veteran Somnath Chatterjee was suffering from a kidney ailment and was put on ventilator support on Saturday.
The 89-year-old was re-admitted to hospital on 10 August following the slight decline in his health. Chatterjee, who is one of the longest-serving parliamentarians in India, was not keeping well from the past few months.
A 12-member team of doctors was keeping a constant watch on the veteran politician, an official told. Last month, the former speaker had suffered a hemorrhagic stroke. “He was under treatment for the past 40 days. Somnath Chatterjee was discharged from the hospital just for three days after his health showed signs of improvement. However, his condition deteriorated last Tuesday and he had to be hospitalised again,” the official had said.
Somnath Chatterjee a 10-time Lok Sabha MP, is currently an independent candidate. He served as the Speaker of Lok Sabha from 2004 to 2009. He joined the CPM in 1968 and remained its leader till 2008.
He was expelled from the political outfit after he refused to step down from his position in the Parliament after the Communist party withdrew support from the Congress government over the India-US nuclear deal.
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