india

Updated: Mar 08, 2020 15:47 IST

West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) chairperson Mamata Banerjee on Sunday named four former Lok Sabha members as the party’s nominees in the Rajya Sabha elections for five seats in the state.

The seats are falling vacant with the end of the tenures of painter Jogen Chowdhury, former bureaucrat-turned-minister Manish Gupta, industrialist K D Singh and newspaper editor Ahmed Hassan Imran, on April 2.

Of the four new nominees, former railway minister Dinesh Trivedi, theatre personality Arpita Ghosh and former Congress MP Mausam Noor had contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections but lost.

Announcing the decision on Twitter on Sunday afternoon, Mamata Banerjee wrote, “I am glad to announce that @AITCofficial will be nominating Arpita Ghosh, Mausam Noor, Dinesh Trivedi and Subrata Bakshi to the Rajya Sabha. As a part of my constant endeavour towards woman empowerment, I am proud that half of our nominations are women #InternationalWomensDay”

Based on the strength of the party on the floor of the Assembly, TMC’s victory is certain in the four seats. The fifth seat that falls vacant with the end of expelled Communist Party of India (Marxist) MP Ritabrata Banerjee’s tenure is likely to go to the Left and Congress if they support a single candidate.

Whether TMC would field a candidate in the fifth seat will be decided later, said a leader of the party.

In the 245-seat Rajya Sabha, Upper House of the Parliament, the TMC has 13 members.

The elections are scheduled on March 26, along with polls in 50 other seats from across the country and March 13 is the last date of filing nomination.

The Left and Congress have agreed on putting up a united candidate in the fifth seat but are yet to reach a consensus over the united candidate.

According to a senior CPI (M) leader of the party’s state unit who spoke on condition of anonymity, the party’s politburo has rejected the state committee’s proposal of nominating party general secretary Sitaram Yechury for the fifth seat. Yechury had earlier represented Bengal in the Rajya Sabha.