Left Front flays Congress for 'unilaterally announcing' RS candidate in Bengal

Left Front Chairman Biman Bose on Friday flayed the Congress high command for "unilaterally announcing" their nominee in the coming Rajya Sabha election in West Bengal, while the two parties were still discussing fielding a common candidate.

Bose claimed that the Left Front was forced to name CPI-M leader Rabin Deb as their candidate for the fifth Rajya Sabha seat in the state.

"Discussion was on between the Left Front and Congress regarding nominating a common candidate for the Rajya Sabha election in West Bengal. But the Congress High-command unilaterally announced their candidate from Delhi, before a conclusion could be reached," Bose alleged.

"It was discussed that either an educationalist or someone associated with social welfare, would be chosen, but under the present circumstances, the Left Front was forced to nominate Robin Deb who has equally good acceptance within the party as well as in other segments of the society," he said.

Meanwhile, Trinamool Congress supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee extended her party's support to Congress candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi in the state and announced the names of four Trinamool candidates -- Subhasish Chakraborty, Abir Biswas, Santunu Sen, and Nadimul Haque for the Rajya Sabha polls.

Elections to the five Rajya Sabha seats from the state became necessary as the terms of Kunal Ghosh, Bibek Gupta and Nadimul Haque of the TMC and Tapan Sen of CPI-M will end on April 2.

Mukul Roy, who defected to BJP from the state ruling party last year, had already resigned from the upper house of Parliament.

--IANS

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