KOLKATA: The countdown has begun for the elections to five Rajya Sabha seats in West Bengal after the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Wednesday announced polls to 37 Rajya Sabha seats across 10 states.
The elections for all the 37 seats will be held on 16 March and the notification will be issued on 26 February. The last date for submitting nominations is 5 March, as per the ECI announcement.
In West Bengal, there will not be any voting if only five candidates submit their nomination papers to the secretary of the state legislative assembly, who is the returning officer (RO), for the five seats in the state. In that case, the RO will hand over certificates to the five winning candidates on 6 March.
But if any additional nomination paper is filed, elections to the five Rajya Sabha seats in Bengal will be held in the state assembly on 16 March.
The certificates will be given to the winners after counting on the same day, according to an official of the legislative assembly.
Each candidate requires the votes of 50 MLAs to win. With the numbers firmly stacked in its favour, the ruling TMC is set to win four of the five Rajya Sabha seats in the state, while the opposition BJP is expected to secure one.
Both the CPI-M-led Left Front and Congress have no scope to field any candidates for the five Rajya Sabha seats as they don’t have any legislator in the assembly.
Given the current arithmetic in the 294-member Assembly, the outcome appears largely pre-determined unless any party fields an additional candidate, which would trigger a contest and inject added political drama just weeks before Bengal is all set to go for the assembly elections.
With the announcement of elections for the five seats, intense political jockeying has gained momentum in Bengal, particularly over whom the ruling Trinamool Congress will nominate for the four seats that the party is set to win.
With the BJP holding 75 of the 294 Assembly seats in West Bengal against the Trinamool Congress’ 215, the opposition party can comfortably secure one Rajya Sabha seat through first-preference votes.
The terms of TMC MPs Subrata Bakshi, Ritabrata Banerjee and Saket Gokhale, along with CPI(M)’s Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, are set to end this year. The term of TMC’s Mausam Noor would also have ended on April 2, but she rejoined the Congress on January 3 and subsequently resigned from the Rajya Sabha.
According to Trinamool Congress insiders, Subrata Bakshi, state president of the ruling party, may not be nominated for another term considering his age and health issues.
“Saket Gokhale and Ritobrata Banerjee were elected in 2023 and 2024, respectively, after Trinamool members Luizinho Faleiro, the former chief minister of Goa, and Jawhar Sircar, retired IAS and the former Prasar Bharati chairman, resigned from the Rajya Sabha after short stints in the party. Gokhale and Banerjee will be given another term considering their good performance. Their six-year term as members of the Rajya Sabha is not yet over,” said a party insider requesting anonymity. He added, “Everything including the seat lying vacant after Noor’s resignation will be finalised by the party supremo Mamata Banerjee and national general secretary of the party Abhishek Banerjee."