KOLKATA: Five candidates, including four from the ruling Trinamool Congress and one from the opposition BJP, on Thursday filed nominations in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly for the Rajya Sabha elections.
The Trinamool Congress-nominated candidates are Rajeev Kumar, a retired IPS officer and controversial former director general of police (DGP) of Bengal; Babul Supriyo, a minister in the Mamata Banerjee Cabinet; senior advocate in the Supreme Court Menaka Guruswamy; and Bengali film actor Koel Mallick. Rahul Sinha, former Bengal BJP president, has been nominated by the saffron camp.
“Deeply happy and honoured. These are early days, just filing the papers,” Guruswamy said after filing her nomination.
She was among the lawyers representing petitioners in the constitutional challenge that led to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in India through the reading down of Section 377 of the IPC in 2018.
Kumar, who earlier served as Kolkata Police commissioner and was once considered one of the trusted IPS officers close to Mamata Banerjee, said, “In the words of Mother Teresa, I trust God will not give me any responsibility I can’t handle. I just wish that he did not trust me so much.”
He served as the DGP of the state from July 2024 until his retirement on January 31, 2026. Kumar was in the spotlight during the 2019 CBI raid at his residence in connection with the Saradha chit fund probe.
The central investigative agency had also grilled him for around 40 hours in Meghalaya the same year in connection with the chit fund case.
Mamata Banerjee had earlier described Kumar as “the best police officer in the world”.
Kumar recently courted controversy when he rushed to the Kolkata residence of Prateek Jain, director of I-PAC, an election strategy consultancy engaged by the Trinamool Congress, and to the I-PAC office in Salt Lake when the Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducted raids at the two places in connection with an alleged coal scam.
Koel, a new entrant to politics, said, “The journey has just begun. I have received the blessings and love of people in the 22 years of my career as an actor. I am confident I will continue to receive their blessings in the coming days also.”
Babul Supriyo was elected to the Lok Sabha from Asansol on a BJP ticket in 2014 and 2019. He resigned as an MP and joined the Trinamool Congress in 2021, and was elected to the West Bengal Vidhan Sabha from Ballygunge in 2022.
According to sources in the Trinamool Congress, Babul was offered the opportunity by the party leadership to contest from the Asansol North Assembly constituency, but he was unwilling.
With numbers stacked in its favour in the 294-member Assembly, the Trinamool Congress is set to win four of the five Rajya Sabha seats from the state, while the opposition BJP is expected to secure one.
The Election Commission has announced that polling for 37 Rajya Sabha seats across multiple states, including West Bengal, will be held on March 16.