Kolkata, Feb 27 (IANS) Trinamool Congress on Friday night announced the names of its candidates for the vacant Rajya Sabha seats in West Bengal, with lots of surprises in the choice of candidates.

The foremost surprise was in the name of Rajeev Kumar, the just retired acting director general of police (DGP) of West Bengal.

The second surprise was in the selection of the current West Bengal information technology minister, and singer-cum-actor turned politician, Babul Supriyo, also a former two-time Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Lok Sabha member and a former Union Minister of State in the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Union Cabinet.

The third surprise was in the name of the senior advocate of the Supreme Court, Menaka Guruswamy, who was the counsel of the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the legal battle on the issue of controversies relating to the Enforcement Directorates’s (ED) recent raid at the office of the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) and the residence of I-PAC’s founder director, Pratik Jain.

The fourth person named by Trinamool Congress as the party candidate for the Upper House in the Parliament in West Bengal is the popular Bengali actress Koel Mallick.

“We are pleased to announce the candidature of Babul Supriyo, Rajeev Kumar (Former DGP, West Bengal), Menaka Guruswamy, and Koel Mallick for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections. We extend our heartfelt congratulations and best wishes to them. May they continue to uphold Trinamool’s enduring legacy of resilience and its unwavering commitment to safeguarding the rights and dignity of every Indian,” a statement issued by Trinamool Congress on Friday night read.

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 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 Assembly, 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.

Now it is to be seen who the BJP names as the party candidate for that lone seat in the Rajya Sabha from West Bengal.

–IANS

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