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 on BJP tickets, completing a rapid political turnaround just days after joining the saffron party.
The three were declared elected after the deadline for withdrawal of nominations ended on Friday with no other candidates left in the fray. Their nomination papers had been cleared during scrutiny on July 15.
The Returning Officer later handed over certificates of election to the newly elected Rajya Sabha members.
Roy, Dev and Chik Baraik joined the BJP in Kolkata on July 9, hours before the party's Central Election Committee announced them as candidates for the July 24 Rajya Sabha bypolls.
The bypolls were necessitated after the trio resigned from both the Rajya Sabha and the TMC last month in the aftermath of the party's defeat in the West Bengal Assembly elections, creating vacancies in the three Upper House seats.
Their unopposed election marks another setback for the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC, with all three returning to the Rajya Sabha within weeks of quitting the party, this time as BJP members.
The induction also marked the BJP's first major inclusion of TMC leaders since it swept the West Bengal Assembly elections and formed its maiden government in the state. The move signalled that while the party had maintained caution over admitting Trinamool leaders after the polls, it was willing to induct leaders it considered politically credible and free from corruption allegations.
Roy, who had represented the TMC in the Rajya Sabha since 2012, was widely seen as one of the party's principal legal and parliamentary strategists. His differences with the party leadership came into the open following the RG Kar rape and murder case, when he publicly sought accountability from his own party, drawing criticism from within the TMC.
Although Roy later deleted some of his social media posts, citing threats to his family's safety, sources said the episode deepened his rift with the party leadership.
Sushmita Dev, a former Congress Lok Sabha MP from Assam and ex-chief of the All India Mahila Congress, joined the TMC in 2021 after leaving the Congress. Before crossing over to the BJP, she had also criticised the Trinamool leadership over alleged corruption.
Prakash Chik Baraik, who entered the Rajya Sabha on a TMC ticket, resigned from both the Upper House and the party last month before joining the BJP.