Swapan Dasgupta quit Rajya Sabha to contest Bengal polls, gets his seat back

Swapan Dasgupta, who resigned from the Rajya Sabha earlier this year to contest the West Bengal assembly elections, has been renominated to the seat that he had vacated, a Union home ministry order said on Tuesday.

The notification said President Ram Nath Kovind had been renominated for the remainder of the term till 24 April 2022. The nominated members are drawn from fields such as literature, science, sports, art, and social service.

Swapan Dasgupta, who was first nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 2016, resigned after he was named as the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate from Bengal’s Tarakeswar assembly seat on March 14. The Congress promptly wrote to the Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu, complaining that Dasgupta hadn’t resigned from the House before contesting election nor had he joined any party.

A nominated MP has the option to join a political party within six months of taking oath. But Dasgupta hadn’t declared his affiliation with the BJP within the six months of being nominated in 2016.

Dasgupta eventually announced his resignation on March 16, declaring that he intended to “commit myself totally to the fight for a better Bengal”. The BJP, which had hoped to capture power in the state, however, ended up with just 77 of the 292 assembly seats on which elections were held.

Swapan Dasgupta also lost the Tarakeswar seat to the Trinamool Congress’ Ramendu Sinharay by a margin of 7,484 votes.

On Sunday, the government had notified the nomination of noted lawyer Mahesh Jethmalani to the Rajya Sabha on Sunday. Jethmalani’s nomination will fill the vacancy that arose after the death of Raghunath Mohapatra who succumbed to Covid-19 earlier this month. His term will end in September 2024.

His father Ram Jethmalani, also a renowned lawyer was also a Rajya Sabha member.