Trinamool announces Rajya Sabha candidates
All India Trinamool Congress has announced the names of six candidates for the Rajya Sabha elections to be held on July 24—Derek O’Brien, Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, Dola Sen, Samirul Islam, Prakash Chik Baraik and Saket Gokhale.
Their names were announced in a tweet today.
From Bengal, six members are retiring and Luizinho Faleiro of Trinamool had resigned from the party.
Of the six, Pradip Bhattacharya is from the Congress. Since Congress does not have any MLAs, it would not be able to send any MPs from Bengal.
In his place, BJP would be sending its first Rajya Sabha MP from the state, since the party has 70 MLAs (of the 77 who won on BJP tickets in 2021, seven have defected to Trinamool).
There have been Bengali BJP MPs like Rupa Ganguly and Swapan Dasgupta, but they were nominated by the President. This Dasgupta and Anirban Ganguly are among the candidates in the running.
Of the six retiring members from Trinamool, three would be returning to the Council of States—Derek O’Brien, Sukhendu Sekhar Ray and Dola Sen.
Samirul Islam, Prakash Chik Baraik and Saket Gokhale would replace Shanta Chhetri, Sushmita Dev and Luizinho Faleiro, in no particular order.
Samirul Islam is a social activist and assistant professor of chemistry at Shyampur Siddheswari Mahavidyalaya in Howrah district, and also the president of Bangla Sanskriti Mancha. Prakash Chik Baraik is the Alipurduar district president of Trinamool and Saket Gokhale is an RTI activist and a national spokesperson of the party.
Faleiro’s term would have been till 2026, so one of the six Trinamool candidates would serve for three years. Some reports said Saket Gokhale would come in place of Faleiro.
