While the CPM remained firm that he should resign, an embattled Chatterjee got support from other quarters. The Samajwadi Party asked him to stay on, saying he was “the representative of the entire House”, and the Congress indicated that it too had no problem if he remained in office.

The BJP, on the other hand, said the tussle only showed the 'contradictions within' the CPM and it was up to the Speaker and his party to decide on his continuance in office.

Sources in the CPM said the Speaker’s insistence to continue will now be discussed at the party’s Central Committee meeting in New Delhi on July 19. This came amid reports that Chatterjee had written a letter to CPM general secretary Prakash Karat, indicating his unwillingness to resign and his inability to vote along with the BJP during the July 22 trust vote. He is also learnt to have conveyed to the party leadership that if made to go, he will also quit as MP.

Asked about the letter by Chatterjee, Karat said “we don’t write letters.”

But a senior CPM politburo member, contacted by The Indian Express, said the party had received the letter. He would not divulge the details, saying it was an internal organisational matter.

Though mulling ways to make Chatterjee fall in line, the CPM continues to insist in public that it never asked the Speaker to step down. “I have already made a statement that the Speaker will decide for himself. I have nothing more to say,” Karat said.

Chatterjee’s stance is seen an an indication of a bigger churning in the party against the decision to vote alongside the BJP. In his capacity as a CPM MP, Chatterjee is said to have reminded the party leadership of the political resolution adopted at the CPM congress in Coimbatore which called for continuing the fight against the BJP.

Senior CPM member Sitaram Yechury continued his efforts to persuade Chatterjee who is upset with the party’s decision to include his name, without consulting him, in the list of MPs who have withdrawn support to the UPA government.

Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh and senior leader Ram Gopal Yadav met Chatterjee today and requested him not to step down as Speaker.

“We had come to meet Somnath Chatterjee with a message from our party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav who asked us to request him not to quit as Speaker as he had been elected to the post unanimously,” said Amar Singh after his meeting with Chatterjee.