A race has begun in the state Congress for the lone Rajya Sabha seat which the party is entitled to in the election for Upper House which will take place later in July. The terms of five Rajya Sabha MPs in the state will come to an
end in August. Of these five, four are Left Front MPs — Sitaram Yechury, Brinda Karat, Mohammed Amin and Abani Roy. The remaining one is from Trinamul Congress, namely Swapan Sadhan Bose. However, the elections will be held for six seats as the Congress has won 42 seats in the recent Assembly polls. The total strength of Assembly in Bengal is 294 and any party requires the support of 42 MLAs to send a member to the Rajya Sabha.
After decades, the Congress has managed to win 42 seats giving the party a clear chance to elect an Upper House member. “In Hindi there is saying: Ek anar sau bimar which can be loosely translated as: There is only one pomegranate while the number of patients is 100,” a Congress general secretary said.
State Congress president Pradip Bhattacharya, Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s close aide Pradyut Guha, party spokesperson Om Prakash Mishra, general secretary Maya Ghosh and Tripura Advocate General Biswajit Deb are the front-runners.
“The final decision will be taken by the party high command but all these aspirants for the Rajya Sabha membership are lobbying hard with Mr Mukherjee because they know that Mrs Sonia Gandhi will not take a call on this matter without first consulting the veteran party leader,” the party general secretary said.
Significantly, besides these state Congress leaders, there is also a dark horse in the race: AICC general secretary and incharge for Bengal Shakeel Ahmed. “Dr Ahmed is considered close to the party high command. Moreover, Pranabda considers him lucky for the state Congress because the party has won 42 seats and emerged second largest party leaving even the CPI(M) behind. Because of his genial demeanour, Dr Ahmed has also won the hearts of large sections of party leaders in the state,” the party general secretary revealed.