MamaTa needS new mpS for rajYa Sabha

In the wake of Trinamool Congress MP Mithun Chakraborty’s resignation from the Rajya Sabha, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is in a dilemma over who his successor should be, a politician or someone nonpolitical. She is said to be in a quandary as more than half a dozen of her MPs in the Rajya Sabha are from fields outside politics. One of them, Srinjoy Ghosh had to resign after being accused in the Sarada scam. Another one, Kunal Ghosh is also an accused in the Sarada scam. Debabrata Bandopadhyay, Jogen Choudhury, Nadidul Haq Imran, Vivek Gupta, Derek O’Brien and Dola Sen are all from outside politics. The performance of most of these MPs has been dismal. While Mithun skipped all three sessions of Parliament, Dola Sen and Kunal Ghosh have never asked any questions in the House. Apart from this, MPs such as Derek O’Brien, Sukhendu Shekhar Roy, Dola Sen and Debabrata Bandopadhyay are all set to retire from the Rajya Sabha. Except for O’Brien no one is sure of getting another term. Among the political names making the rounds are that of Manas Bhunia and former TMC minister Chandrima Bhattacharya. Among the non political names, the foremost is that of cricketer Sourav Ganguly. The Trinamool has been trying to woo him for the last several years, but he has resisted all overtures. The last Thursday of 2016 turned out to be quite eventful for Tamil Nadu politics. As the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam hoped their “Amma” J. Jayalalithaa’s soul would guide her conscience-keeper Sasikala Natarajan in her new avatar as interim general secretary of the party, the Madras High Court cast doubts on the causes of the former Chief Minister’s death and asked “why her body cannot be exhumed”. This has once again proved that as in life, Jayalalithaa remains an enigma in death too. “Media has raised a lot of doubts; personally I also have doubts on Jayalalithaa’s death,” Justice S. Vaidyanathan said, while hearing a petition moved by a party worker asking for an investigation into the “mysterious death” of the party leader. The petitioner had listed the sequence of events since Jayalalithaa’s admission to Apollo Hospitals, Chennai, on 22 September and claimed that the “secrecy” preceding her death gave rise to “grave doubts” in the minds of the people. When state Advocate General Muthukumaraswamy contended that “there is no mystery in the death,” the judge said the public has a right to know what has happened. “I personally find in case if I have doubt I may