Bikash Bhattacharya all set to enter Rajya Sabha, end of dry spell for Bengal Left likely

Former Mayor of Kolkata and a veteran of Left politics, Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, is all set to be the sole member of the Parliament as the Left representative from West Bengal. Speaking to Republic TV, the former Mayor of Kolkata has accepted that his party has nominated him as a nominee for the 5th Rajya Sabha seat from West Bengal. 

"This is a decision at a political level. I'm sure keeping in the entire political situation of the country as a whole. Happy that they have chosen me to be a nominee for the 5th seat." said Bhattacharya who is also supported by Congress. 

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Mamata announces nominees for RS MP

On Sunday, Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee had announced the names of four former MPs Arpita Ghosh, Mausam Benazir Noor, Dinesh Trivedi and Subrata Bakshi as candidates for the Rajya Sabha polls.

The fifth seat is held by former CPIM leader Ritrobrata Banerjee who was suspended from the party but continued as an independent.

Sources within the Left front have stated that General Secretary Sitaram Yechury was an initial choice by the party but as he is also heading the party overall, it was better for another person to be a representative at Rajya Sabha. For the first time since 1961, the Left in Bengal had no representative at either of the houses. The Left lost its sole MP from Raigunj in the 2019 general elections to BJP. 

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Is Mamata happy about Bhattacharya's nomination?

There have been reports suggesting that the TMC supremo too was happy that the Left has a Bengal representative in Rajya Sabha but Bikash Bhattacharya laid that theory to rest.

He said, "I don't have any information on Mamata Banerjee being happy that my name is being chosen over Yechury."

Rajya Sabha polls for the five seats of West Bengal will be held on March 26. The election for the fifth seat will definitely be a litmus test for the Left-Congress tie-up in the State, as both of them are likely to go for a seat-sharing formula for the Kolkata Municipal Elections in April 2020 and the West Bengal Legislative Assembly elections in 2021.

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(Image: Youtube)