The Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal on Monday informed that it would not field a candidate for the upcoming Rajya Sabha by-poll scheduled to be held on October 4. This decision would pave the way for the Trinamool Congress nominee, Sushmita Dev, to be elected unopposed.
Dev had recently joined the TMC after quitting the Congress. The daughter of the late Santosh Mohan Dev, a veteran Congress leader from Assam, she was the chief of the Congress' women's wing. Though named by the TMC last week, Sushmita is likely to file her nomination today.
"BJP will not nominate any candidate for Rajyasabha bypoll due in West Bengal. Outcome is predetermined. Our focus is to make sure unelected CM to be unelected once again. Jai Ma Kali," Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari tweeted, referring to Banerjee contesting by-election from Bhabanipur assembly seat in Kolkata after losing to him in Nandigram.
The upcoming by-poll was necessitated with the quitting of Trinamool's Manas Bhunia. Bhunia quit after winning the assembly election from Sabang in Paschim Medinipur.
In an earlier by-election to a Rajya Sabha seat in July, the BJP had decided against fielding a nominee. TMC candidate and former Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar had got elected unopposed.
In the March-April assembly elections, the TMC won 214 seats and the BJP 77. The ISF and GJM won a seat each. While BJP MLAs Nisith Pramanik and Jagannath Sarkar resigner later to retain their Lok Sabha seats, four other BJP legislators switched over to the TMC. However, they are yet to resign as MLAs.