The seat vacated by Pranab Mukherjee from West Bengal after his election to Lok Sabha, will be going to the CPI(M). The second seat from Andhra Pradesh is also being offered to the party by the Congress.

The party nominated Chittobrata Mazumdar, CITU general secretary and CPI(M) Central Committee member, for the seat vacated by Mukherjee. The CPI(M)’s Andhra secretariat finally proposed the name of P. Madhu for the single seat in the state.

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Politburo member Sitaram Yechury’s name was doing the rounds but what, sources said, miffed the CPI(M) hardliners, was the fact that the Congress took upon itself the onus of proposing his name. However, CPI(M) general secretary Harkishen Surjeet was in favour of sending Yechury to the Rajya Sabha to fill up the vacuum created in the parliamentary party by Somnath Chatterjee’s elevation to the Speaker’s post and also for better coordination with the UPA members, which in any case, is Yechury’s present assignment — given Surjeet’s health condition. But hardliners did not view the proposal favourably.