The Election Commission of India’s (ECI) announcement on Wednesday, that elections to 37 Rajya Sabha seats across 10 states will be held on March 16, has set off intense political speculation in West Bengal, particularly over whom the Trinamool Congress (TMC) will nominate for at least four of the five seats from the state that are due to fall vacant on April 2.
With the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) holding 75 of the 294 Assembly seats in West Bengal against the ruling TMC’s 215, the opposition party can comfortably secure one Rajya Sabha seat through first-preference votes. The Congress and Left, which have had no MLAs in the state since 2021, are out of contention.
The terms of TMC MPs Subrata Bakshi, Ritabrata Banerjee and Saket Gokhale, along with CPI(M)’s Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, are set to end this year. The term of TMC’s Mausam Noor would also have ended on April 2, but she rejoined the Congress on January 3 and subsequently resigned from the Rajya Sabha.
“There is speculation that Bakshi, the TMC state president, may not be given a second term due to his age and health issues,” a senior TMC office-bearer said on condition of anonymity.
“Gokhale and Banerjee were elected in 2023 and 2024, respectively, after TMC members Luizinho Faleiro, the former Goa chief minister, and Jawhar Sircar, the former Prasar Bharati chairman, resigned from the Rajya Sabha after short stints in the party. Since Gokhale and Banerjee have not completed their six-year terms and are performing well, they may be asked to continue,” the leader added.
Another TMC leader said that the final decision on the sitting members would be taken by party chairperson Mamata Banerjee and national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee. “As for the vacant seat following Noor’s resignation, the party may nominate a Muslim candidate to join the two existing Rajya Sabha members from the community — Nadimul Haque and Samirul Islam,” the leader said.
“However, the names of two Hindu candidates are also doing the rounds. One is a doctor and the other a journalist. This will be decided by the top leadership, especially as the party already has senior journalist Sagarika Ghosh in the Upper House,” he added.
BJP leaders said the party would also target the seat being vacated by CPI(M)’s Bhattacharya, a senior lawyer, even though the party is already represented in the Rajya Sabha by state unit president Samik Bhattacharya and Rajbanshi community leader Ananta Roy, also known as Ananta Maharaj.
“Actor-turned-politician Mithun Chakraborty could be a possible candidate, especially with an eye on the upcoming state polls. The decision will be taken entirely by the central leadership in Delhi,” a BJP leader said.
In the last biennial Rajya Sabha elections in 2024, Sagarika Ghosh, author of biographies of former prime ministers Indira Gandhi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, made her political debut. The TMC’s other successful candidates included Sushmita Dev, a former Congress Lok Sabha MP who joined the party in 2021, and Dalit Matua community leader and former Lok Sabha MP Mamata Bala Thakur. The fourth winner was Nadimul Haque, who was already a sitting member.
BJP’s Samik Bhattacharya, then the party’s state chief spokesperson, was elected unopposed.
