Kolkata

Three BJP candidates - Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, Sushmita Dev and Prakash Chik Baraik - filed their nomination papers on Monday for the Rajya Sabha bypolls in West Bengal, scheduled to be held on July 24, officials said.

Ahead of the nomination filing, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, along with state BJP president Samik Bhattacharya, held a meeting with the three nominees at his chamber in the assembly.

The candidates later submitted their papers before the returning officer, the officials said.

The three Rajya Sabha seats fell vacant after Ray, Dev and Baraik resigned from the Upper House of Parliament and quit the TMC following the party’s assembly election defeat. They are now poised to return to Parliament barely a month later, on BJP tickets this time.

They joined the BJP on July 9 and were named the party’s candidates for the Rajya Sabha bypolls from West Bengal within hours.

This was the first major induction of former TMC leaders into the BJP since it swept the assembly polls, signalling that the party’s post-election embargo on Trinamool Congress entrants would not extend to leaders it considers politically credible and free from corruption.

Speaking to reporters after filing her nomination, Dev thanked the BJP leadership and legislators for reposing faith in her and described the reception she had received in the party as akin to "a family".

She said Adhikari had asked her to actively participate in debates in the Rajya Sabha and work in coordination with the party's legislators.

Dev asserted that although she was born in Assam's Silchar, she remained committed to safeguarding the interests of West Bengal.

"I have spoken for Bengal in Parliament before and will continue to work for the interests of the state," she said.

Drawing a comparison with her former party, Dev said there was a "big difference" between the functioning of the BJP and the TMC.

According to the Election Commission’s notification, each of the three vacancies will be filled through a separate election and treated as an independent contest, even though all three bypolls will follow a common schedule.

Rajya Sabha members are elected by members of the state legislative assembly through proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote. Since each vacancy is being contested separately, a candidate requires the support of 147 MLAs to secure election.

With 207 legislators in the 294-member assembly, the BJP comfortably crosses that mark in every contest and is therefore in a position to win all three seats on its own.

Responding to questions over the induction of the former TMC leaders, Bhattacharya rejected allegations that the BJP was undergoing "Trinamoolification".

He said the party was bigger than any individual leader and that "the country is bigger than the party", indicating that the decision to induct the three former TMC MPs and nominate them under the BJP banner was guided by what the party viewed as national interest.

Senior BJP leader and state minister Dilip Ghosh also defended the move.

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"There is no mention anywhere that the BJP cannot take talent from other parties," Ghosh said, adding that several senior BJP leaders, including Adhikari, had switched over from the TMC.