For senior leaders: Mamata vows to revive Vidhan Parishad

KOLKATA: If voted to power, Trinamool Congress (TMC) will revive the Vidhan Parishad (Legislative Council) to accommodate senior and experienced leaders, who could not be given nominations for the Assembly elections due to various reasons, party Chairperson Mamata Banerjee said on Friday.

While addressing a press conference during the announcement of the list of candidates she said: "Purnedu Bose and Amit Mitra could not be made candidates as Bose will be busy with party activities and Mitra is not well. We propose to set up Vidhan Parishad to accommodate them."

Six out of 28 states in India, namely, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Bihar, Utter Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka have Legislative Council. West Bengal Legislative Council was set up in 1952 and got abolished in 1969 during the time of United Front government.

The Parliament of India passed the West Bengal Legislative Council (Abolition) Act 1969 for abolishing the Legislative Council with effect from August 1, 1969.

Andhra Pradesh had abolished Vidhan Parishad in 1985 and formed it again in 2007.

The Vidhan Parishad is the Upper House of the Legislative Assembly.

The tenure of the members is for six years. One-third of its members retire after two years.

The size of the Legislative Council cannot be more than one-third of the membership of the state Legislative Assembly.

Its size cannot be less than 40 members.

One-third of the members of the Legislative Council are elected by the members of the municipalities, Gram Panchayats, Panchayat Samities. One-third are elected by the MLAs while one-sixth are nominated by the Governor. The Vidhan Parishad has no role in passing the money bill. Its establishment is defined in Article 168 of the Constitution.