Newsmakers | TMC pulls a surprise with Sagarika Ghose in RS polls list, Matua leader too among nominees

According to the current strength of the West Bengal Assembly, four TMC candidates and one from the BJP will be elected to the Rajya Sabha. The TMC has 222 members in the Assembly while the BJP has 68. Others make up three seats, while one seat is vacant in the 294-member House.

Mohammad Nadimul Haque

Haque is a two-time Rajya Sabha MP, having been sent to the Upper House of Parliament for the first time in 2012. A writer and journalist by profession, he is the owner of the Kolkata-based Urdu daily Akhbar-e-Mashriq. He was a member of the Rajbhasha Committee of the Railway Ministry between October 2009 and March 2012, a time when the TMC was in charge of the ministry. He also served as a member of the Passenger Services Committee.

Since 2011, when the TMC stormed to power in West Bengal, he has served as a member of various committees of the West Bengal government such as the Press Accreditation Committee and the West Bengal Minority Development & Finance Corporation, and has also served on the governing body of the Urdu Academy, the Mohammedan Burial Board of Kolkata Municipal Corporation, the Citizens Committee of Kolkata Police, and the Nazrul Academy.

Following his renomination, Haque expressed gratitude in a video message. “I thank my party for giving me this opportunity for the third time. I thank party supremo Mamata Banerjee and MP Abhishek Banerjee for giving me the opportunity to serve the people once more,” he said.

Sushmita Dev

Dev began her political career with the Congress and served as the president of the All India Mahila Congress. The daughter of veteran Congress leader and MP Santosh Mohan Dev and former Congress MLA from Silchar Bithika Dev, Sushmita represented the seat in the Assam Assembly from 2011 to 2014 before being elected to the Lok Sabha from the Silchar constituency that year. She lost the seat five years later to the BJP’s Rajdeep Roy.

In 2021, ahead of the West Bengal Assembly polls, Sushmita quit the party and joined the TMC and was nominated to the Rajya Sabha.

Dev thanked her party chief and expressed gratitude to her for providing an opportunity to serve the people. “While there is a half-baked Women’s Reservation Bill in Parliament, Mamata di has walked the talk. We do not know when the reservation will be provided. She has consistently facilitated more and more representation in Parliament,” she said in a video message.

Mamata Bala Thakur

Thakur belongs to the electorally important Matua community and is the daughter-in-law of Binapani Devi Thakur, who was known as “Boro Maa (elder mother)”, the matriarch of the Matua Mahasangh. With this move, the TMC provides representation to the community that has a strong presence in the districts of North 24 Parganas and Nadia and is a crucial vote bank for both the ruling party and the BJP.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Binapani Devi’s eldest son Kapil Krishna Thakur was elected to the Lok Sabha from Bongaon. After Kapil’s sudden death in October 2014, a family feud ensued between his wife Mamata Bala and his brother Manjul who wanted his youngest son Subrata to get the ticket for the by-election from Bongaon. But the TMC picked Mamata Bala.

Manjul quit as minister to join the BJP, which gave Subrata a ticket from Bongaon for the bypoll. However, Mamata Bala won the election and Subrata came third. Manjul returned to the TMC a few months later. In addition, the charge of party affairs in the area was handed over to Mamata Bala.

The family feud worsened after Binapani Devi’s death in March 2019 and two Matua Mahasangha factions emerged, one pro-TMC led by Mamata Bala and the other led by Shantanu Thakur, Manjul’s eldest son. Shantanu defeated his aunt in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and is now a Union Minister.

Sagarika Ghose

A first-time nominee to the Upper House, Ghose is a journalist and author with wide experience in covering politics. She has worked for prominent news publications such as The Times of India and The Indian Express, and the television media. The daughter of former Doordarshan director-general Bhaskar Ghose, she, like Derek O’Brien, will likely be the party’s voice in national media.

Ghose has authored biographies of former Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee and two novels, The Gin Drinkers and Blind Faith. In her 2018 non-fiction book Why I Am A Liberal: A Manifesto For Indians Who Believe in Individual Freedom, she argued that despite India being founded as a liberal democracy in 1947, governments had vastly increased their powers and attacked individual freedoms.

Interestingly, in 2012, TMC chairperson Mamata Banerjee angrily stormed out of a television show hosted by Ghose after taking offence at a question asked by a college student in the audience.

In a Facebook post, Ghose expressed her happiness upon getting the party’s nomination. “Honoured and delighted to be nominated to the Rajya Sabha by the All India Trinamool Congress. I remain inspired by the courage and commitment of Mamata Banerjee,” she said.