Chatterjee knew he had lost the party. He probably did not consider that while doing that he gained national admiration. Overnight, he has become the darling of the middle classes. His many interventions were no longer being dismissed as those of a man who views himself at a headmaster. True, he is a stickler for rules and runs the House with a brutal fairness which can be occasionally unfair to a hesitant debutant making his first speech. But then at the end of the day, he is a fair man, whose integrity and impartiality in running the House were never in doubt.

Rahul Gandhi told Somnath Chatterjee during his trust vote speech that he had learnt a lot from him. And Chatterjee himself was more concerned about the health of former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee when the voting display boards were throwing up strange numbers. Those were significant frozen frames from a day that belonged to history.

Nearly three decades ago, I borrowed a book on Mao’s Long March from Chatterjee’s library at his Raja Basanta Roy Road residence in Kolkata. Needless to say, the book was never returned. Now that Chatterjee’s own long march with his party comes to an end, it’s time to wish him a new beginning.

The writer is national affairs editor, CNN-IBN diptosh@gmail.com