TMC's Sushmita Dev likely to be elected unopposed

Kolkata: Sushmita Dev, Trinamool Congress (TMC) nominee for the Rajya Sabha bypoll, submitted her nomination on Monday and with BJP — the main opposition in Bengal — stating that it will not field a candidate for the October 4 by-election, Dev is likely to go to the Upper House of Parliament uncontested. She arrived at the Assembly House at about 2 pm and submitted her nomination.

Dev — daughter of former Union minister Late Santosh Mohan Dev — was a Congress MP from Assam between 2014 and 2019 and also the all-India president of Mahila Congress before she switched over to the TMC.

Her current assignment is to strengthen the base of Trinamool Congress in Tripura. After filing the nomination, she said she was grateful to TMC chairperson Mamata Banerjee for giving her an opportunity to work for the people.

Another TMC seat in Rajya Sabha fell vacant after Arpita Ghosh resigned last week. The party has not yet finalised any candidate. Earlier, the Trinamool Congress had sent Jawhar Sircar, former bureaucrat to the Rajya Sabha.

The BJP had won 77 of the 292 seats in the March-April Assembly elections and the Trinamool Congress got 213. The ISF and GJM had bagged one seat each.

BJP MLAs Nisith Pramanik and Jagannath Sarkar resigned to retain their Lok Sabha seats, bringing down the party's strength in the Assembly to 75. Four other BJP legislators switched over to the TMC but are yet to resign as MLAs.