Singhvi, 4 TMC candidates win RS poll from West Bengal

Kolkata: Congress candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi and four Trinamool Congress nominees were today elected to the Rajya Sabha from West Bengal, Returning Officer Jayanta Koley announced. TMC supported Singhvi in the Rajya Sabha poll who contested as the fifth candidate as the Congress did not have the strength in the Assembly to get its candidate elected. Singhvi secured 47 votes, he said. The four TMC candidates who won the RS election are Nadimul Haque, Subhasish Chakraborty, Abir Biswas and Santunu Sen, he said. Nadimul Haque secured 52 votes, Subhasish Chakraborty got 54 votes, Abir Biswas bagged 52 and Santunu Sen secured 51 votes, Koley said. Left Front-backed CPI(M) candidate Rabin Deb lost the poll. He had contested for the fifth seat bagged only 30 votes. It will be the second term for Nadimul Haque in the upper house. A candidate required 49 votes to win a RS seat from the state. The Congress has 42 MLAs in the house. Of the 294 MLAs of the assembly, 288 had cast their votes. Two votes were declared invalid. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Opposition leader Abdul Mannan and the MLAs cast their votes in the assembly premises. Altogether six candidates including Singhvi were in the fray for five RS seats from the state. Election to the five Rajya Sabha seats from the state was necessitated as the terms of Kunal Ghosh, Bibek Gupta and Nadimul Haque of the TMC and Tapan Sen of the CPI(M) will end on April 2. Mukul Roy, who quit the TMC and joined the BJP last year, has already resigned from the Rajya Sabha.