Overview
- The three former TMC members Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, Sushmita Dev and Prakash Chik Baraik filed nomination papers as BJP candidates on Monday, July 13 for Rajya Sabha bypolls scheduled on July 24.
- They had resigned their Rajya Sabha seats in early June after leaving the Trinamool Congress, creating the vacancies the bypolls will fill.
- Under the single transferable vote system each separate vacancy requires 147 MLA votes and the BJP’s assembly strength of roughly 207 legislators places its nominees in a position to win all three contests on party votes alone.
- Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari and state BJP president Samik Bhattacharya accompanied the candidates to the returning officer and party leaders defended the swift inductions as an ‘exceptional’ decision based on the trio’s perceived value and clean records.
- The move both boosts the BJP’s parliamentary numbers and signals a broader post‑election recalibration in Bengal that could strengthen the party’s national arithmetic while generating discontent among some local party workers.