Harish Gupta. New Delhi
Sitaram Yetchury, senior CPM leader, is likely to get the re-nomination to the Rajya Sabha in the biennial polls slated to take place on July 22 in West Bengal and couple of other states.
Highly placed sources in the CPM say that CPM general secretary Prakash Karat has sent word that he would like to re-nominate Sitaram Yetchury. There is consideration speculation in the Left parties as to who will be nominated to the lone seat the CPM is going to get from West Bengal. Sitaram Yetchury and Brinda Karat are retiring this month and both were first timers and have a claim for the seat. But Yetchury has been a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on 2G spectrum scam and also chairman of the parliament’s standing committee on Tourism. Besides, Prakash Karat who has been on the back-foot would not take the trouble of re-nominating his wife ignoring the claim of Yetchury.
In all, there are five vacancies in Rajya Sabha from West Bengal. The Trinamool Congress will win three, one by the Congress and one by the Left Front combine. July 12 is the last date of filing nomination papers and there is considerable activity within the BJP, Congress and other parties to fill 10 regular Rajya Sabha seats and two other casual vacancies (One in Maharashtra due to the resignation of Prithviraj Chavan and another in Tamil Nadu as K V ramalingam was elected to the state Assembly).
The BJP high command is understood to have indicated its desire to nominate Nirmala Sitaraman, a telugu speaking BJP national spokesman for the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat. BJP Parliamentary board is meeting next to select three candidates while the Congress will win the fourth seat. Since Assembly elections are due in Gujrat next year, the preferences of Chief Minister Narendra Modi have to be taken into consideration. Ahmad Patel, political secretary to the Congress president Sonia Gandhi is set to be re-nominated from Gujrat, party sources say.
