Manish Gupta, on Monday, filed his nomination for the Rajya Sabha election.
The Rajya Sabha seat fell vacant after Trinamool Congress MP resigned last year, who had become a Rajya Sabha member in 2014.
Gupta went to the chamber of the Assembly secretary and filed the nomination. He was accompanied by Nirmal Ghosh and Tapas Roy, chief whip and deputy chief whip. Partha Chatterjee, state parliamentary Affairs minister said: "Manish da can be declared elected today. He will raise important issues in Rajya Sabha." Gupta said: "I am grateful to Mamata Banerjee and will raise important issues of Bengal in Rajya Sabha."
Gupta, who was the state chief secretary and home secretary during the Left Front regime, joined Trinamool Congress after retirement and rose to fame after defeating former Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee from Jadavpur Assembly seat in 2011. He was the state Power minister between 2011 and 2016 and was defeated by Sujan Chakraborty of CPI(M) in 2016 Assembly polls. The main reason behind his defeat was infighting. Banerjee had said after she was sworn in for the second time that she would rehabilitate Gupta.
Political experts have said that as Trinamool would try to put pressure on the Centre, it needed someone who knows the functioning of bureaucracy thoroughly.