Kolkata: Political rivals in West Bengal CPI-M and Congress today joined hands to ensure the defeat of a Trinamool Congress candidate pitted against an independent while four ruling Left Front nominees sailed through in the elections to five Rajya Sabha seats.

The CPI(M)-led Left Front MLAs cast votes along with their Congress counterparts in favour of a local Urdu daily editor A S Malihabadi, sealing the chances of Trinamool Congress nominee and industrialist Dinesh Trivedi from getting re-elected to the Upper House.

Malihabadi secured the highest number of 58 first preference votes.

Left Front nominees Shyamal Chakraborty, Tarini Roy and Prasanto Chatterjee, all of CPI(M), and Forward Bloc general Secretary Debabrata Biswas also won the polls.

Trivedi failed to get re-elected as he polled 31 votes. Tarini Roy (CPI-M) failed to muster the required 49 votes to sail through (48) after counting of first preference votes but four of the nine second preference votes were transferred from Malihabadi's account to facilitate Roy's win.
Source : PTI