Political experts said that while heavyweight Bhunia has been rewarded for defecting from Congress to TMC, Chhetri has been nominated to make party's foothold strong in the hills
In a Facebook post on Sunday, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced the names of five TMC candidates for upcoming elections to Rajya Sabha — Derek 'O Brien, Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, Dola Sen, Dr Manas Bhunia and Shanta Chhetri — and conveyed her best wishes to them. "I have announced five names. One more has to be settled upon. We will announce that later," she said.
Of the five, three — Brien, Roy and Sen — had been re-nominated to the Upper House. While Debabrata Bandopadhyay failed to secure his seat for a second stint, Dr Bhunia is one of the new entrants who is still officially a Congress MLA. Chhetri is an MLA of Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF).
Political experts said that while heavyweight Bhunia has been rewarded for defecting from Congress to TMC, Chhetri has been nominated to make party's foothold strong in the hills.
Brien refused to react before the June 8 election. Roy said he was grateful to Mamata for giving him the second term at the upper house. "I had always tried to follow the party's instruction to the hilt and will continue to do so in the future. We will continue to surface the voice of Bengal at Rajya Sabha," he said.
Dr Bhunia accepted it with a bow. "I am grateful to the party. It is one of the highest recognition I have received in my long political career. It is the recognition of a soldier by the top general of the party," he said.
Leader of Opposition at the state Assembly and Congress MLA Abdul Mannan, reacting to Dr Bhunia's nomination said, "Whoever makes his career with the help of Congress and then later jilts out for personal interest, I will call him or her a betrayer. He or she can be the Prime Minister as well."
State Congress president Adhir Chowdhury said Dr Bhunia has been a Parliamentarian before so hopefully it would be good for Bengal.
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