Somnath Chatterjee, born 25 July 1929, was an Indian politician who was associated with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) for most of his life, though he had been a non-affiliated independent during his last decade.
He was the Speaker of the Lok Sabha (House of the People) from 2004 to 2009.
It was on his initiative that proceedings of the Zero Hour were telecast live from July 5, 2004. A full-fledged 24-hour Lok Sabha television channel also came into being in July 2006 during his tenure as speaker. Chatterjee was elected to the Lok Sabha 10 times on a party ticket beginning in 1971 when he was elected as a CPI(M)-backed independent candidate to a seat in an interim election necessitated due to the death of his father.
He was defeated only once in 1984 by Mamata Banerjee, who incidentally came to the limelight with this win. Chatterjee was the leader of the CPI(M) in Lok Sabha from 1989 to 2004. He was born at Tezpur in Assam on July 25, 1929, to N C Chatterjee, who was once president of the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha and Binapani Debi and was educated in Kolkata and the United Kingdom.
A Barrister-at-Law from Middle Temple in the UK, Chatterjee was a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) for four decades from 1968 to 2008, till he was expelled in 2008. Conferred the “Outstanding Parliamentarian Award” in 1996, Chatterjee was known for his debating skills with extensive knowledge of national and international issues, delivered in his deep baritone voice, interspersed with wit and humour.
In 1996 he won the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award. In 2013, he received Living Legend Award at the prestigious Bharat Nirman Awards.
