Trinamool picks Ritabrata for RS bypolls on Dec 20
Times of India | 8 December 2024
Kolkata: Trinamool on Saturday made a surprise pick for the Dec 20 Rajya Sabha bypoll by nominating Ritabrata Bandyopadhyay, its 46-year-old low-profile trade wing leader, to replace former bureaucrat Jawhar Sircar.
Bandyopadhyay returns to the Upper House for the second time to serve out Sircar's remaining 15 months. Elected in 2021, Sircar, a lateral entrant to politics, had quit the party and RS in the aftermath of the RG Kar incident in Sept.
Bandyopadhyay, who had a meteoric rise in CPM, from Asutosh College's SFI unit head to its all-India general secretary, was nominated by CPM for Rajya Sabha in 2014. He, however, was expelled by CPM on multiple allegations in 2017, ranging from moral turpitude to public criticism of the party brass.
After his first RS tenure ended in 2020, Bandyopadhyay joined Trinamool.
Unlike his rollercoaster ride in CPM, Bandyopadhy-ay's stint in Trinamool was extremely low-profile and mostly saw him working behind the scenes, bringing in divergent — and often boisterous — intra-party trade union factions together, and firming up the party's trade units in the north Bengal tea gardens and politically volatile Haldia.
Bandyopadhyay's work did not go unnoticed. After TMC's decisive win in the 2021 assembly polls, CM Mamata Banerjee hand-picked him as state head of the party's trade units. Three years on, Banerjee rewarded him with an RS nomination.
TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee's statement on X bore this out when he wrote: "This recognition is truly well-deserved, reflecting the tireless effort Ritabrata Bandyopadhyay has invested in strengthening the organization and advocating for trade union workers across WB. While it may take time, commitment, performance and hard work are always rewarded in the end."
Bandyopadhyay's only public statements after his nomination were on X, in which he posted CM Banerjee's photograph to say: "I bow my head at your feet." To Abhishek he wrote, "Humbled and honoured, leader."
Given TMC's majority in the Bengal assembly, Bandyopadhyay's Dec 20 victory is a foregone conclusion where a candidate only requires around 50 first-preference votes to win. However, his nomination also prompted BJP to dig out past allegations to make a renewed attack on him.
For TMC functionaries, Banerjee's RS pick was only about an indication of whether the party would pick an apolitical personality to replace Sircar or a party faithful. TMC chose the latter.
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