Congress high-command likely to make the final decision.
After TMC announced the names of the party’s Rajya Sabha candidates from West Bengal, the attention is on Congress as to who the party would nominate. Initially CPIM general secretary Sitaram Yechury’s name was one of the hot contenders but after he turned down the offer, the name of President Pranab Mukherjee’s daughter Sharmistha Mukherjee is now doing the rounds. Sharmistha had contested the last Assembly election unsuccessfully from Greater Kailash seat in South Delhi.
While Congress has two more than the required 42 preference votes to elect a Rajya Sabha member, it would be cutting the ice too thin to depend upon the party’s preference votes especially at present when the party is going through a turbulent time.
Mamata’s meeting with AICC president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi on May 17 regarding presidential election and then later in a core committee meeting on May 19 asking party leadership to go soft on Congress have fuelled speculation about a new possible political equation in the state.
State Congress leadership led by chief Adhir Chowdhury had fiercely opposed any alliance with TMC in Bengal and had also written to Sonia Gandhi to keep the state leadership in confidence before settling in on any name as the Rajya Sabha candidate from Bengal. Talking to DNA, Chowdhury said that they did not have any inhibition as long as the candidate was not from TMC. “It can be Sharmistha Mukherjee, Deepa Dasmunshi or Om Prakash Mishra. We will not have any problem as long as the nomination is not in favour of a TMC candidate,” he said.
Congress MLA and party chief whip Manoj Chakraborty too said that earlier there was hardly any coordination between the state MLAs and the Rajya Sabha MPs which should not be repeated. A section of the Bengal Congress was also in favour of nominating former Supreme Court judge Ashok Ganguly who had had several clash with the state government.
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