Trinamul member Dola Sen was on Wednesday elected as the Rajya Sabha’s representative on the Employees State Insurance Corporation’s governing council by a huge margin, prompting the defeated Congress and CPM candidates to allege a BJP-Trinamul nexus, exposing the fragility of Opposition unity even inside Parliament.
Sen got 90 of the 156 votes polled against the 46 secured by Pradip Bhattacharya of the Congress and 8 by Elamaram Kareem of the CPM. A dozen votes were declared invalid.
That Trinamul, with 13 Rajya Sabha members, could trump 48-member Congress was cited by many members as evidence of the disarray within the Grand Old Party.
Trinamul insiders rejected the allegation of an understanding with the BJP to get Sen elected, saying they had tapped the non-BJP parties, something the Congress was too “arrogant’’ to do.
Reacting to the Congress and CPM accusations, Trinamul’s chief whip in the Rajya Sabha, Sukhendu S. Ray, said: “This seat was allotted to Trinamul for many years. It is ridiculous to allege that anyone joined hands for a membership to a Rajya Sabha board.”
Ray added: “People are aware how the Congress and the CPM had joined hands with the BJP to defeat our candidates in the Lok Sabha elections and to what extent the CPM and Congress votes had shifted to the BJP. The allegation (from) the defeated Congress candidate is laughable.”
Bhattacharya alleged the BJP had encouraged its allies to vote for the Trinamul candidate and that he had confronted Union minister Prakash Javadekar over this.
“BJP workers in Bengal should know what their leadership does in Delhi,” he told The Telegraph. “The BJP claims that Trinamul is killing its people in Bengal but supports that party’s candidate in Delhi.’’
Kareem echoed this and countered a claim by Trinamul sources that their party had on Tuesday night offered to let him win after going through the motions of an election.
“There was only one understanding — between Trinamul and the BJP. And, Trinamul won. There was no other understanding,’’ he said.
