TMC’s Prakash Chik Baraik resigns as Rajya Sabha MP, third to quit in four days

Trinamool Congress leader Prakash Chik Baraik on Thursday resigned as a Rajya Sabha MP.

He told ANI that he was “accepting the opinion” of the people of West Bengal, referring to the Assembly elections in which the Bharatiya Janata Party defeated the TMC in May.

It was unclear if Baraik had also quit the TMC, as the party’s two other Rajya Sabha MPs had in the past three days.

When a reporter asked him if he was going to join the BJP, he said that “time will tell”.

Baraik became a Rajya Sabha member in August 2023 and had more than three years left in his term.

On Monday, TMC’s Rajya Sabha MP Sukhendu Sekhar Ray resigned from the House and quit the party. Ray had cited the result of the recent West Bengal Assembly elections in which the TMC lost to the BJP.

On Wednesday, another TMC leader Sushmita Dev on Wednesday resigned as Rajya Sabha MP and quit the party, citing personal and political reasons.

Since losing the state polls, the TMC has been facing internal divisions.

In the Lok Sabha, at least 20 of the TMC’s 28 MPs, led by party leader Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, wrote to Speaker Om Birla on Monday, declaring their support for the ruling National Democratic Alliance.

At the state level, expelled MLA Ritabrata Banerjee has claimed that a group...

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