Three former Trinamool Congress (TMC) Rajya Sabha members who were formally inducted into the BJP in Kolkata on Thursday, were within hours named as the party's candidates for the July 24 Rajya Sabha bypolls necessitated by their own resignations.
Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, Sushmita Dev and Prakash Chik Baraik joined the BJP at the party's Kolkata office in the presence of state unit president Samik Bhattacharya, who called it "a really happy day" and said Bengal would move ahead under a "double-engine" government, similar to Assam and Tripura.
The three had quit as TMC Rajya Sabha MPs in the month following the party's defeat in the West Bengal Assembly elections, with Ray resigning on June 8, Dev on June 10 and Baraik on June 11.
The BJP's Central Election Committee cleared their candidatures for the upper house on Thursday evening, a departure from the party's earlier stated position of keeping its doors shut to Trinamool leaders over corruption allegations.
State BJP chief Samik Biswas defended the decision, telling PTI, that leaders who had not indulged in corruption or wrongdoing had always been welcome to join the fight against the TMC.
Ray, who has represented the Rajya Sabha since 2011 and served as TMC's chief whip in the House, said the protests over the 2024 R G Kar Medical College case had signalled the party's coming defeat, and accused the TMC government of pushing Bengal "backwards," The Indian Express reported.
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Dev, the Trinamool's Lok Sabha MP from Assam's Silchar constituency before her elevation to the Rajya Sabha, accused her former party of extensive corruption and praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership, according to the newspaper.
She had reportedly consulted Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma before quitting.
Baraik, seen as close to TMC's Abhishek Banerjee before his exit, rose from the Kumargram panchayat in Alipurduar district to the Rajya Sabha within five years, having been elected to the upper house in 2023.
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