Kolkata/New Delhi: The Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Saturday nominated retired bureaucrat Jawhar Sircar as their candidate for the upcoming Rajya Sabha by-election in the state.
The West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee headed party said they are selecting Sircar because “his invaluable contribution to public servicer shall help us serve our country better.”
“We are delighted to nominate Jawhar Sircar in the Upper House of the Parliament,” a TMC statement said.
Born in Kolkata in 1952, he studied there at St. Xavier’s School and then in Presidency College and Calcutta University.
Sircar spent nearly 42 years in public service and was also the former CEO of Prasar Bharati.
Reacting to his nomination, Sircar said he was surprised when he was first offered the position but he would strive to work for the people.
“I have been a bureaucrat all my life. I am not a political person but I would definitely work for the development of the masses and raise the issues concerning the masses in parliament,” he said.
“The intolerant, dictatorial Narendra Modi regime should be opposed and resisted at all levels. This nomination will give me better opportunity to speak more forcefully against this BJP government,” Sircar said.
Sircar had submitted his resignation to the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) ministry in October, 2016, four months ahead of his scheduled retirement in February 2017.
“I had never been supportive of Narendra Modi’s policies and had never flinched from voicing my views after superannuation,” Sircar recalled.
He had recently been critical of the action taken by the Union government against former West Bengal chief secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay over the issue of not attending the Kalaikunda meeting of the prime minister.
The BJP state unit vice-president Joyprakash Majumder said, “Sircar is a long term bureaucrat and had been a fierce critic of us since his retirement.”
“But he had never protested any misdemeanour of the Trinamool Congress government and thus suffers from lack of balance as his covert support had always been with Trinamool,” the BJP leader added.
In his long and illustrious career, the 69-year old had headed India’s Culture Ministry from November 2008 to February 2012, the longest for any secretary.
Sircar is a regular contributor to The Wire. In March, he was also appointed to the independent committee established by DIGIPUB, an association of digital news media publishers that includes The Wire, to review published content.
The Rajya Sabha seat fell vacant after TMC leader Dinesh Trivedi resigned from his post to join the BJP ahead of the assembly polls.
The by-elections are scheduled to be held on August 9.
Then a Trinamool Congress member, Trivedi had announced his resignation from the Rajya Sabha on February 12 and Trivedi’s term was to end in April 2026.
The Election Commission said the notification for the by-poll would be issued on July 22 and the election would be held on August 9. The by-poll will be held if the opposition BJP fields its candidate for the same, otherwise, the TMC nominee will be declared elected unopposed.
(With inputs from PTI)