KOLKATA: Trinamool Congress on Sunday announced its candidates for the Rajya Sabha polls. Bengal’s ruling party decided to send four fresh faces in the upper house of Parliament.
"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 women empowerment, I am proud that half of our nominees are women," tweeted Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee.
Three of the nominated MPs, Ghosh, Noor and Trivedi, fell victim to BJP’s aggressive onslaught in 2019 Lok Sabha elections and failed to win the elections. There was a buzz in the political circuit in Bengal and Manish Gupta would be re-nominated but the Trinamool high-command preferred to select four fresh faces.
Noor, niece of former railway minister ABA Gani Khan Chowdhury, defected to Trinamool from Congress before the Lok Sabha polls and contested from Malda (North) constituency.
Ghosh, a playwright turned politician, was elected from Balurghat constituency in 2014 but failed to secure the electoral win in 2019.
Trivedi’s defeat in Barrackpore constituency caused a jolt to Bengal’s ruling party as former Trinamool MLA Arjun Singh, who defected to BJP, secured the seat.
Bakshi, the all India general secretary of the party, was first elected to parliament from Kolkata (south) constituency in 2011 after Mamata resigned to become a member of West Bengal legislative Assembly. He was re-elected in 2019 and the party replaced him with Mala Roy in 2019 Lok Sabha elections.