(Representative image)

KOLKATA: Elections to 58 Rajya Sabha seats , including five from Bengal, will be held on March 23. According to an Election Commission communique , the counting of votes will be held on the same evening.

In Bengal, Trinamool Congress MPs Nadimul Haq and Vivek Gupta are set to complete their term. Kunal Ghosh, who was suspended by the party, is also set to complete his term. Another senior leader, Mukul Roy, had resigned from the Rajya Sabha after defecting to BJP. CPM’s Tapan Kumar Sen is also set to complete his term.

Trinamool insiders said the party was set to re-nominate Haq for a second term. Party leaders are also hopeful that Gupta, too, might be nominated for a second term. The party is likely to field new candidates to replace Ghosh and Roy. Jaya Bachchan is a front-runner, sources indicated. The other new face is likely to be a legal luminary. According to assembly arithmetic, Trinamool on its own has enough numbers to send four members to the RS. A contest is likely for the fifth seat, which requires any two among the three major parties/fronts in the state — Trinamool, Left and Congress — to back a candidate together. On their own, the parties lack the required number of first preference votes. The elections, however, is likely to position Trinamool as the second largest opposition party in the RS after the Congress.

In August 2017, BJP overtook the Congress to become the largest party in RS with 58 members against 57 of the main opposition party.

The states from where members are retiring are UP

(10), Andhra, Odisha, Telangana and Rajasthan (three each), Bihar and Maharashtra (six each), Bengal and Madhya Pradesh (five each), Karnataka and Gujarat (four each), Jharkhand (two), Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal and Uttarakhand (one each).

