Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, Sushmita Dave and Prakash Shek Barak, the three Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders who resigned from the Rajya Sabha in June, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Kolkata on Thursday. The BJP said all three former TMC leaders will contest the by-elections to be held on July 24 to fill the Senate seats vacated by them.
BJP state president Samik Bhattacharya welcomed them to the party at its West Bengal headquarters in Salt Lake and stopped short of confirming whether they would be the party’s candidates.
“They are officially joining the Narendra Modi-led party that has steadily taken the nation forward. The only identity of these three people at the moment is that they are BJP workers,” he said.
Read also | Former TMC Rajya Sabha MPs Sushmita Dev, Sukhendu Sekhar Rai and Prakash Shek Barak join BJP in Kolkata
Asked about his earlier assertion that no TMC leader would be appointed in the BJP, Bhattacharya said: “This is not an aberration but an exception. Exceptions prove the law. The BJP’s door is closed to TMC leaders who have plundered people and those who are polluting.”
Roy and Dave used the occasion to launch sharp attacks on the Transitional Military Council, while Barak did not speak at the event.
“People may raise questions but for me this is a happy hour. Bengal, which once led the country in industry, education and healthcare, has turned into a desert during 34 years of Left rule and 15 years of TMC rule,” Roy said.
Claiming that the TMC failed to read public sentiment after the RG Kar incident, he added that “the party is over.”
Sushmita Dev says TMC is corrupt
Dave, who joined the TMC from Congress in 2021, alleged widespread corruption in the TMC. She said: “What I saw in the Transitional Military Council is widespread corruption, even at the popular level. This level of corruption does not exist in any other party.”
The Election Commission announced the results of the Rajya Sabha by-elections on Monday after the three leaders resigned in June in the wake of the TMC debacle in the Assembly elections.
Meanwhile, of the 80 TMC candidates who won the April elections, at least 65 have joined the rebel camp led by Ritabrata Banerjee, who was recognized by the Speaker of Parliament as the leader of the opposition in June.
The BJP currently controls three of the thirteen Rajya Sabha seats from West Bengal. The remaining 10 TMC MPs are known to be loyal to Mamata Banerjee.
