If one drives down Gariahat Road, which after a point turns into Raja S.C. Mullick Road, one would pass, to the left, a rather unassuming building. But looks can be deceiving because, Dinabandhu Andrews College also boasts a prominent faculty. One name in particular caused considerable buzz earlier this week, especially in political circles, after West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool party declared him as one of its six nominees for the Upper House of Parliament, the Rajya Sabha.

That name was that of Professor Samirul Islam, an IITian and chemistry professor, who is also leader of “Banglar Sanskriti Mancha” or The Forum for the Culture of Bengal. Not among Trinamool’s most visible public faces, Prof. Islam’s nomination did come as a surprise to few, who were not privy to discussions taking place within the party for weeks. In the speculations leading up to the announcements, the three names that were declared almost sanguine were those of the very vociferous Trinamool spokespersons, Dola Sen, Derek O’Brien and Sukhendu Shekhar Roy.

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“The role that they played in constantly raising the pitch, demanding clarifications and keeping the issues of importance alive in the Upper House with their regular interjections and questionings made them almost impossible to let go,” said political analyst Tarun Ganguly. Their nominations were not the surprises. The new names, other than Professor Islam’s were those of RTI activist, Saket Gokhale and Trinamool’s Alipurduar District president, Prakash Chik Baraik.

The profile of Prof. Islam is an interesting study in understanding the calculated decision to nominate him. The 36-year-old chemistry professor’s credentials include his tireless work among the minorities, migrant labouers and others from the under privileged group during the Covid-19 pandemic, which has translated into a sizeable support base in several districts, including East and West Bardhaman, Birbhum, Malda and Murshidabad and parts of the North and South 24 Paraganas Districts.

The fielding of the young candidate from the minority community, it is felt, was meant also to counter the growing influence, in southern Bengal, of the Indian Secular Front and its leader Naushad Siddiqui, who was supposed to significantly “dip” into the nearly 27 percent of the Muslim vote, otherwise considered a Mamata forte. Prof’s Islam’s nomination is expected to throw a spanner in the works for Siddiqui. “In West Bengal, political parties don’t have a chance of a victory unless it has the support of at least a part of that 27 percent minority vote,” veteran politician Chandra Kumar Bose told The Statesman. Bose, part of the Bengal BJP, however, is an advocate of “communal harmony” and he pointed out that political parties who would want to do electorally well in the state would need to adopt it as a principle.

Prof Islam’s Bengal forum has not only stood for the idea of communal harmony but it has been involved in agitations against the central government’s moves to introduce NRC and CAA. Before the Assembly elections of 2021, it had been among the groups to have organized the anti-BJP programs including the “No Vote to BJU” campaign, which really caught on on social media especially Facebook and Twitter. The other two names nominated by Trinamool which until the announcement was made public were not known, were that of Saket Gokhale and Prakash Chik Baraik. Gokhale, an RTI activist is also extremely active on social media. His criticism of the BJP had report