New Delhi, July 7 -- The bypolls to three Rajya Sabha seats from West Bengal have brought into focus the far-reaching consequences of the split in the opposition Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress.

The altered arithmetic in the state assembly has placed the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) in a strong position to win all three seats in a contest that would ordinarily have yielded one seat to the opposition.

The bypolls, scheduled for July 24, were necessitated by the resignations of former TMC Rajya Sabha members Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, Sushmita Dev and Prakash Chik Baraik, who quit both the Upper House and the party in June after questioning the leadership following the TMC's defeat in the assembly elections.

The terms of Roy and Baraik w...