The Trinamul Congress in West Bengal on Monday announced the names of six candidates for the forthcoming Rajya Sabha polls, three of whom are being re-nominated. Also in the list is Saket Gokhale, reputed for his right-to-information activism. Elections are to be held for seven Rajya Sabha seats in West Bengal on July 24.
Given its strength in the state assembly, the TMC can walk away with as many as six seats, while the opposition BJP can bag one.
Derek O’Brien, Dola Sen, Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, Shanta Chhetri and Sushmita Dev of Trinamool Congress and Pradip Bhattacharya of the Congress will be retiring at the end of their term now. Of the six candidates announced by the Trinamool leadership, three have been re-nominated. They are Derek O’Brien, Dola Sen, Sukhendu Sekhar Roy.
The three new faces are Samirul Islam, Prakash Chik Baraik and the party’s national spokesperson Saket Gokhale, who mainly operates from Gujarat.
Shanta Chhetri and Sushmita Dev were not given re-nomination. Since the Congress does not have a single representative in the Assembly, they will not be able to field any candidate when Pradip Bhattacharya's term ends.