Five Rajya Sabha candidates from Bengal — four from the Trinamool Congress and one from the BJP — filed their nominations on Thursday, the last day to do so.

Since there are only five nominations for the equal number of vacancies, all the candidates are poised to win unopposed.

The scrutiny of the nomination papers will be held on Friday. If none of the five withdraws the nomination by Monday, they will be handed their victory certificates.

Trinamool has nominated retired IPS officer Rajeev Kumar, actor Koel Mallick, lawyer Menaka Guruswamy and singer-actor Babul Supriyo (the state's outgoing IT minister) to the Upper House. They thanked Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee and her nephew and heir apparent, Abhishek Banerjee, for the nomination.

Kumar's term as acting DGP had ended earlier this year amid rumours that he might take the political plunge. Kumar was always known as "Mamata's favourite" in the state's political and administrative circles.

Before his term ended, Kumar had courted controversy for accompanying Mamata when officers of the Enforcement Directorate raided the I-PAC office. The ED named him in its complaint, and the case is pending in the Supreme Court.

The BJP's nominee is Rahul Sinha, who contested Lok Sabha and Assembly elections unsuccessfully nine times since 1998.

While the four Trinamool candidates filed the papers smoothly, the process was not glitch-free for Sinha. BJP sources said that although Sinha was the first to arrive at the Assembly, he could not complete the process early, as some crucial documents were missing. A BJP leader said that after all necessary documents were collected, Sinha filed his nomination late in the afternoon.

With the impending election of Kumar, Mallick, Guruswamy and Supriyo, Trinamool will have 13 members in the Rajya Sabha from among Bengal's 16. The BJP will have three after Sinha's election.

The five MPs' term will start in April and end in 2032. For the first time since Independence, the state has no Rajya Sabha or Lok Sabha representative from the Left, with the term of the CPM's Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya in the Upper House set to end in April.

Abhishek Manu Singhvi was the last from Bengal to represent the Congress in the Rajya Sabha. His term ended in 2024.