Three former Trinamool Congress MPs who quit the Rajya Sabha last month and switched over to the BJP on Thursday evening have wasted no time settling into their new party, they’ve already been named as BJP’s candidates for the very seats they vacated.
The move came together quickly. On Thursday evening, BJP’s West Bengal state president and Rajya Sabha MP Samik Bhattacharya formally welcomed Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, Sushmita Dev and Prakash Chik Baraik into the party, handing each of them the BJP flag in a brief ceremony. By that night, the party had already put out a statement confirming all three would contest the upcoming bypolls under its banner.
Bhattacharya was careful to frame the switch as unusual rather than a template for future defections, describing the decision to admit the trio as an exceptional case rather than routine practice.
Voting for the three vacant seats is set for July 24, and given the numbers on the ground, a BJP sweep looks all but certain.
The three didn’t resign together. Roy went first, stepping down on June 8, with Dev following on June 10 and Baraik two days later on June 11. Their exits weren’t quiet either. Baraik marked his departure with praise for Suvendu Adhikari, while Dev, who has roots in Assam, was seen meeting Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma in Delhi around the same time.
Of the three, Roy’s fallout with Trinamool had been building the longest. He’d grown openly critical of the party well before this year’s West Bengal Assembly elections, and his criticism sharpened further after the rape and murder of a junior doctor at Kolkata’s R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in August 2024, an incident that saw him take direct aim at Mamata Banerjee’s handling of the crisis. That friction eventually saw him pushed to the margins within the party, setting the stage for his resignation last month.
On paper, the arithmetic in the Assembly makes the outcome fairly predictable. With 208 MLAs behind it, the BJP has more than enough numbers to see its nominees through, while any opposition candidate hoping to block them would need to muster at least 70 votes.
Trinamool’s own house, meanwhile, remains divided. Although the party officially has 80 legislators, 60 now sit with expelled leader Ritabrata Banerjee’s breakaway faction, leaving just 20 still aligned with Mamata Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee.
