New Delhi: Hours after three former Trinamool Congress (TMC) MPs in the Rajya Sabha – Sushmita Dev, Sukhendu Sekhar Ray and Prakash Chik Baraik – joined the BJP, the latter on Thursday (July 9) fielded them as its candidates to the vacancies they created.The trio, who had quit the TMC and resigned as MPs after the party’s landslide defeat in the West Bengal assembly elections, joined the BJP in the presence of party state president Samik Bhattacharya, himself a Rajya Sabha parliamentarian, in Kolkata.The Election Commission (EC) had announced on Monday that it will hold by-elections to the vacancies created by Dev, Ray and Baraik on July 24. Nominations may be made until the 14th and will be scrutinised the next day.While Ray and Baraik’s terms were to last until August 2029, Dev’s tenure was to end in April 2030.Last month Bhattacharya had said that “the ‘Trinamool-isation’ of the BJP cannot occur” and that “now our doors are closed to the TMC”.Dev, Ray and Baraik’s resignations last month came amid a larger exodus of legislators from the defeated TMC, including 20 of the party’s 28 Lok Sabha MPs led by Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar and more than 60 of its 80 MLAs led by Ritabrata Banerjee, all of whom have stayed on as lawmakers and formed separate, breakaway factions.Last week the EC wrote to those factions of the TMC led by chairperson Mamata Banerjee and rebel leader Ritabrata, who is also leader of opposition in the state assembly, seeking their response over their competing claims to truly represent the party.