KOLKATA — Out of the five Rajya Sabha seats from West Bengal for which elections will be held on March 16, the ruling Trinamool Congress is all set to comfortably bag four, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will have to settle with one, as per the numerical strengths of the two parties in the state Assembly.
Of these Rajya Sabha seats, three will fall vacant with the end of the current terms of sitting Trinamool members, namely Subrata Bakshi, Ritabrata Banerjee, and Saket Gokhale.
The fourth seat, which is becoming vacant, is that of the erstwhile Trinamool MP, Mausam Benazir Noor, who resigned from the Rajya Sabha and joined the Congress recently. As per the Trinamool’s existing numerical strength in the West Bengal Congress, the party will comfortably get its candidates elected from these four seats.
The term of CPI-M Rajya Sabha member and senior advocate Bikas Ranjan Bhattacharya is also ending. Since the party does not have any strength in the Assembly now, the BJP will be able to get its lone candidate elected from that seat easily.
Trinamool is so far tight-lipped about their choice of candidates for the four seats. In the case of the BJP, three names are in discussion. These include former actress-turned-politician and former MP Locket Chatterjee, and the second is megastar Mithin Chakraborty, who was once a Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member.
The name of the current BJP legislator from Balurghat Assembly constituency in South Dinajpur district and the former Chief Economic Advisor to the Union government, Dr Ashok Kumar Lahiri, is also being discussed, an insider from the BJP’s state committee in West Bengal said.
As per a statement issued by the Election Commission, the notification for the elections for 37 Rajya Sabha seats in 19 states, including the five from West Bengal, will be issued on February 26.
The last date for filing nominations will be March 5, and the scrutiny of the nominations will be on March 6.
The last date for withdrawal of candidatures will be March 9. The polling will be conducted on March 16, from 9 a.m. till 5 p.m. The counting of votes will also be on March 16. — IANS
