WB Cong defies Sonia on RS seat

The much “powerful” Congress high command has reportedly failed to prevail over its West Bengal unit to nominate former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar as a joint Opposition candidate from the fifth Rajya Sabha seat in West Bengal.

Sources said that though Congress President Sonia Gandhi was “livid”, she was helpless as well, as the party’s state unit had already committed to support CPI(M) candidate and former Kolkata mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya as a joint Left-Congress candidate.

The Congress had earlier offered the seat to CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury but his party’s Politburo had yet again rejected it citing him holding a key party post.

Sources in the Trinamul Congress told this newspaper that on the evening of March 12, TMC leaders approached the Congress leadership with a proposal from West Bengal Chief Minister and party supremo Mamata Banerjee that Meira Kumar can be a joint candidate for the fifth seat.

Ms Kumar’s nomination to the Upper House would have bolstered the Congress strength as the party is facing big dearth of faces in the Rajya Sabha. It might be recalled that with the exit of Jyotiraditya Scindia from the Congress, the party has lost one seat from Madhya Pradesh, in Bihar the RJD has gone back on its apparent promise to give one Rajya Sabha seat to the

Congress.

In West Bengal, the Trinamul has already fielded Mausam Benazir Noor, Arpita Ghosh, Dinesh Trivedi and Subrata Bakshi as its four candidates. After the offer for Meira Kumar did not come through, Trinamool Congress decided to support independent candidate Dinesh Bajaj for the fifth Rajya Sabha seat.