Three Trinamul Congress candidates namely Subhasis Chakraborty, Abir Biswas and Dr Santanu Sen were elected unopposed while the fourth nominee Nadimul Haque was re-elected to the Rajya Sabha from the state on Friday.

While all of them were elected uncontested, Congress nominee for Rajya Sabha Abhishek Manu Singhvi who was supported by Trinamul Congress defeated the Left Front candidate in the fifth seat.

While Trinamul legislator Kasturi Das has died, three BJP MLAs did not cast their votes. The votes of two Trinamul MLAs namely Jakir Hossain and Mrigen Maiti were disqualified.

In all, 54 votes were received by Subhasis Chakraborty, both Nadimul Haq and Abir Biswas got 52 votes. The Congress candidate contesting with Trinamul support, Abhishek Manu Singvi received 47 votes while his opponent Rabin Deb got 30 votes.

Asked about the cancellation of votes, state parliamentary affairs minister Partha Chatterjee said that he was not aware of the matter. “If food minister Jyotirmoy Mullick, who is our poll observer informs us about the matter, then the party would not take it lightly,” said Mr Chatterjee.

Before leaving Assembly, chief minister Mamata Banerjee showed a victory sign and said that they were winning in all the five seats though the poll results are yet to be decalred.

While all the candidates arrived before 9 a.m at the state Assembly when the polling was scheduled to start, chief minister Mamata Banerjee arrived at 12.26 p.m. and cast her vote at 2.05 p.m

“I have no idea whether the Congress-Left Front co-orodinaiton will exist hereafter,” Chatterjee said on his arrival at the Assembly earlier during the day.

He fielded this question as despite a Congress and Left Front floor corodination within the House, the chief minister had announced Sighvi’s name and her party’s support for him.

“We have to ensure the victory of the Congress candidate as we have to bring all the anti-BJP forces together,” Chatterjee who is also the secretary-general of his party said. “We have also asked the legislators who have crossed over to our side from Congress to vote for Singhvi,” he said.

The Congress had 42 MLAs after the 2016 state Assembly elections. But the number reduced to 33 as the rest had defected to Trinamul.

The Left Front had 32 legislators, but two of them joined the Trinamul earlier. Election to the five Rajya Sabha seats from the state was necessitated as the terms of Kunal Ghosh, Bibek Gupta and Nadimul Haque of the TMC and Tapan Sen of CPI(M) will end on 2 April.

Mukul Roy, who quit the Trinamul and joined the BJP last year, has already resigned from the Rajya Sabha.