Kolkata: BJP Rajya Sabha candidates Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, left, Sushmita Dev, centre, and Prakash Chik Baraik after receiving their election certificates. (PTI Photo)
NEW DELHI: Former Trinamool Congress (TMC) MPs Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, Sushmita Dev, and Prakash Chik Baraik were on Friday elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from West Bengal as BJP members, completing a swift political turnaround days after switching sides. The three leaders were declared elected after the deadline for withdrawal of nominations expired on Friday, two days after the scrutiny of nomination papers, with no other candidates left in the fray.The trio joined the BJP in Kolkata on July 9. Hours later, the saffron party announced them as candidates for the July 24 Rajya Sabha bypolls.The bypolls were necessitated after they resigned from both the Rajya Sabha and the TMC last month following the party’s defeat in the West Bengal Assembly elections, creating vacancies in the three Upper House seats.The assembly election result brought the BJP to power in West Bengal for the first time, ending the TMC’s 15-year rule.The former TMC MPs’ election marks another setback for the party, with all three returning to the Rajya Sabha on BJP tickets within weeks of quitting the Trinamool Congress, after it split into factions led by Mamata Banerjee and Ritabrata Banerjee following its defeat in the April elections.They were also the first TMC leaders to join the BJP after the assembly election results. Roy, who represented the TMC in the Rajya Sabha since 2012, was regarded as one of the party’s key legal and parliamentary strategists. His differences with the leadership became public after the RG Kar rape and murder case, when he sought accountability from his own party, drawing criticism from within the TMC.Though he later deleted some social media posts, citing threats to his family’s safety, the episode further widened his rift with the leadership, sources said.Dev, a former Congress Lok Sabha MP from Assam, joined the TMC in 2021. Before switching to the BJP, she had criticised the Trinamool leadership over alleged corruption.(With PTI inputs)
