2 Women Leaders, Former Union Minister Among Mamata Banerjee’s Picks for Rajya Sabha Polls

Kolkata: Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Sunday nominated former union minister Dinesh Trivedi, state unit president Subrata Bakshi, artist-turned-politician Arpita Ghosh and former MP Mausam Benazir Noor for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections.

Declaring the names on Twitter, the West Bengal chief minister expressed pride at having picked two women leaders for the Upper House on International Women’s Day.

“I am glad to announce that @AITCofficial will be nominating Arpita Ghosh, Mausam Noor, Dinesh Trivedi & Subrata Bakshi to the Rajya Sabha. As a part of my constant endeavour towards woman empowerment, I am proud that half of our nominations are women #InternationalWomensDay (sic),” Banerjee tweeted.

Calling the nomination a “wonderful gift” by the CM on women’s day, Mausam Noor, who had switched over from the Congress last year, said, “It is a big responsibility and I will try to fulfil it. I am honoured that Mamata di has felt that I am capable of handling this responsibility.”

Speaking to News18, Subrata Bakshi, too, expressed happiness at being picked. “Mamata Banerjee’s instruction is ‘order’ for me. I will give my best to take my party forward,” he said.

The elections to five Rajya Sabha seats allocated to West Bengal will be held on March 26. The tenures of eminent painter Professor Jogen Chowdhury, journalist Ahmed Hassan Imran, businessman-turned-politician KD Singh, and former bureaucrat-turned-minister Manish Gupta will end on April 2.

Done with the task of choosing the candidates, Mamata Banerjee’s next challenge will be keeping her flock together to quell discontent over candidate selection. Three senior functionaries — Soumitra Khan, Anupam Hazra and Arjun Singh — had jumped ship to the BJP last year over not being given tickets for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

“We saw that sitting MPs from Coochbehar, Bishnupur, Jhargram, Bolpur, Basirshat and Krishnanagar were dropped during the Lok Sabha polls last year. It affected our party’s tally. Therefore, this time, our party supremo was very careful while selecting candidates for the Rajya Sabha seats. But some may express dissent over the choices of names,” a senior TMC leader said.

The leader added that the BJP may try to create rift within the TMC in the hopes of poaching some big names in the run-up to the 2021 Assembly elections.

Earlier, there was speculation that Omprakash Mishra, who had switched over from the Congress to the TMC in September last year, would also get a Rajya Sabha nomination.