Bengal agriculture minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay on Friday stepped down as MLA, apparently to facilitate Mamata Banerjee to contest from Bhowanipore in a bypoll and get elected to the Assembly.

The chief minister had been defeated by her former protégé Suvendu Adhikari, who had contested on a BJP ticket, in the Nandigram constituency in the recent Assembly polls. Chattopadhyay’s resignation came 19 days after being declared a winner from the Bhowanipore Assembly seat in Calcutta.

Sources said Chattopadhyay — Trinamul Congress’s first-ever elected MLA in 1998 — was likely to contest from Khardah, where a bypoll was necessitated by the death of his party’s victorious candidate Kajal Sinha from Covid-19.

“Bengal needs Mamata Banerjee to continue as its chief minister. I resigned so that she is able to contest from Bhowanipore. It’s the least I could have done,” Chattopadhyay said after tendering his resignation to Speaker Biman Banerjee in the latter’s chamber at the Assembly. The Speaker accepted the resignation.

Sources said Mamata, who had lost the contentious election in Nandigram by a margin of 1,956 votes (0.85 per cent of the vote share), was now likely to return to her home turf of Bhowanipore in the bypoll.

Asked if he would contest from Khardah, Chattopadhyay said such discussions had taken place and several options were on the table.

“But the announcements should ideally be made by the party, the likes of Partha (Chatterjee, Trinamul secretary-general)…. I try and steer clear of impropriety in public as well as personal life,” said the 77-year-old veteran trade union leader with degrees in science and law.

With an indubitably clean image for an Indian politician, Chattopadhyay spent 22 years in the Congress before leaving with Mamata when she founded Trinamul 23 years ago. He is one of the most-trusted lieutenants of the chief minister.

Despite the Bhowanipore seat having intensified into a challenge given the BJP’s rise there in the Lok Sabha polls of 2019, Chattopadhyay scripted victory by a handsome margin of 28,719 votes (22.55 per cent of the vote share) in the south Calcutta seat with some of the city’s most prominent neighbourhoods. This was Chattopadhyay’s first appearance in Bhowanipore. He had represented Baruipur West two times as a Congress MLA and Rashbehari as the Trinamul legislator for five terms.

Having taken oath as cabinet ministers earlier this month, both Mamata and Chattopadhyay will have to get elected to the Assembly within six months. Amit Mitra, who became finance minister for the third consecutive term, also needs to get elected to the 294-member House within six months. He hadn’t contested the Assembly polls because of ill-health.

However, hours after the results had been declared in the first week of May, the Election Commission of India suspended all bypolls indefinitely in view of Covid-19. Dates for Jangipur and Samserganj Assembly bypolls had already been announced.

Earlier this week, the Bengal cabinet approved Mamata’s idea of reviving the upper House, the Vidhan Parishad, abolished in 1969. But its revival with the necessity of central approval might not be possible within six months.

Besides Khardah, Samserganj, Jangipur and Bhowanipore, bypolls will have to be held in Dinhata and Santipur also as BJP MPs Nisith Pramanik and Jagannath Sarkar had quit the two seats, respectively.

Trinamul hopes it will certainly win all the six seats given the landslide in favour of Mamata and the certainty of her third consecutive term in power. If Trinamul wins the six seats, its tally in the Assembly will rise to 217 and the number of BJP MLAs will come down to 75 from 77.

Sources in Trinamul said Chattopadhyay had been offered a Rajya Sabha berth, but he wanted to continue in state politics.

Two Bengal Rajya Sabha vacancies — created by the resignation of Dinesh Trivedi who had left Trinamul for

the BJP and Manas Bhuniya who won the Assembly polls and became a minister — are to be filled by bypolls soon. Both the berths will certainly go to Trinamul. The party’s national vice-president Yashwant Sinha is likely to get one seat.

The other remains up for grabs as poll consultant Prashant Kishor has purportedly declined the offer for a Rajya Sabha berth from Trinamul.