Now Cong fields RS candidate from Bengal

Mannan will submit his nomination on Monday. We have decided to field Mannansaab for the seat and we hope he will win. We want to reiterate the fact that we are not going to seek support from any other party,be it Left or whatever,but we will only seek votes from our ally the Trinamool Congress, Shakeel Ahmed,AICC observer in charge of West Bengal,told The Indian Express over phone.

While CPM nominee Tapan Sen filed his nomination on March 16,four Trinamool Congress nominees Union minister of state for shipping Mukul Roy,Kunal Ghosh,Nadimul Haque and Vivek Gupta filed their nominations on Saturday. Three of the four are sure to scrape through,but now with the Congress deciding to field a candidate,the fate of the fourth candidate hangs in the balance because though he is sure to get votes of first preference of 38 members,he is still in need of the support of another 10 members.

The Trinamool Congress was banking on the votes of four Gorkha Janmukti Morcha members but since the GJM has decided to boycot the elections,it will find it difficult to get the numbers for its fourth candidate.

The Congress which has 42 MLAs and hopes to get the support of one Independent candidate,Hamidur Rehman,is still in need of seven votes.

Chiranjeevi,Renuka Choudhary on Andhra list
New Delhi: Telugu cinestar Chiranjeevi,who had merged his Praja Rajyam Party with the Congress recently,party spokesperson Renuka Choudhary and Govardhan Reddy were nominated by the Congress for the Rajya Sabha biennial elections from Andhra Pradesh. Jharkhand PCC chief Pradeep Balmuchu got the party nomination for the lone Rajya Sabha seat from the state,while Rajya Sabha deputy chairman K Rehman Khan was renominated from Karnataka. Praveen Rashtrapal and Shadilal Batra were nominated from Gujarat and Harayana respectively. Satyabrat Chaturvedi was nominated from Madhya Pradesh and Mahendra Singh Mehra from Uttarakhand.