4 min readKolkataJul 10, 2026 05:11 AM IST
First published on: Jul 10, 2026 at 05:10 AM IST
Three former Trinamool Congress (TMC) Rajya Sabha MPs, who resigned from their posts a month after the party’s defeat in the West Bengal Assembly elections, joined the BJP on Thursday. Hours later, the BJP announced them as candidates for the Rajya Sabha bypolls necessitated by their resignations.
Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, Sushmita Dev and Prakash Chik Baraik joined the BJP at the party’s office in Kolkata in the presence of state party president Samik Bhattacharya.
“All our leaders, including (Chief Minister) Suvendu Adhikari and I, are happy with their inclusion in the party,” Bhattacharya said, adding, “It is a really happy day for us. Like Assam and Tripura, which are moving forward under the double-engine government, Bengal will also move ahead.”
In the months following the West Bengal Assembly election results on May 4, which saw the BJP come to power with a landslide victory, the TMC has faced its gravest internal crisis.
Amid the crisis, on June 8, Ray resigned as Rajya Sabha MP. He was followed by Sushmita Dev on June 10 and Baraik on June 11.
After joining the BJP on Thursday, Ray said the protests following the 2024 R G Kar Medical College rape and murder case had already indicated that the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC would not retain power in the Assembly elections. He also claimed that under the TMC government, Bengal was “moving backwards”.
“This was because of repeated opposition to the central government. By always speaking against the central government, we were moving outside the map of India. In trying to oppose the central government, talent left Bengal. Bengal became an old-age home,” he said.
In her comments after joining the ruling party, Sushmita Dev accused her old party of corruption. “I am very saddened. Since childhood, I have seen Didi (Mamata Banerjee) in a cotton sari, but I have seen in Bengal how much corruption can happen — it is unbelievable. I entered politics to serve the country. Corruption has been extreme in Trinamool at the lower levels,” she said. She also praised the Prime Minister, saying, “The kind of vision that Modi has, no other leader has in the country.”
Soon after her resignation as TMC Rajya Sabha MP last month, Dev had met Assam Chief Minister and BJP leader Himanta Biswa Sarma in New Delhi. While she described it as a courtesy call, sources suggested that Sarma played a role in her decision to quit the TMC.
Dev is the daughter of former Union minister Santosh Mohan Dev and began her career in the Congress party, winning the Silchar Lok Sabha seat in Assam in 2014. She rose to national prominence as president of the All India Mahila Congress before joining TMC in 2021 to spearhead its Northeast expansion.
Within TMC, she served as national spokesperson and was later elected to the Rajya Sabha, becoming a key face of the party in the region.
Sukhendu Shekhar Roy’s political journey also started with the Congress party, before he joined the TMC. He was the vice-president of the Calcutta High Court Bar Association between 2009 and 2011.
He became a Rajya Sabha member for the first time after Mamata Banerjee assumed office as Chief Minister in 2011. After that, he served three consecutive terms in the Upper House of Parliament. He was also the party’s Chief Whip in the House.
However, during the RG Kar case protests, he supported the protesters and even joined a “night march”.
Prakash Chik Baraik, however, had been seen as being close to TMC’s second-in-command Abhishek Banerjee before his resignation from the party. In 2018, he fought his first election in the Kumargram panchayat of Alipurduar district, after which he rose rapidly in the party. Within five years, in 2023, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha.
Former TMC MPs Sushmita Dev, Sukhendu Sekhar Ray and Prakash Chik Baraik with Bengal BJP chief Samik Bhattacharya (second from left) in Kolkata on Thursday. (Express Photo) 
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