Sushmita Dev of the Trinamul Congress was elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha on Monday in the absence of any rival candidate from the Opposition in the Bengal Assembly.

Dev, 49, will be able to occupy the Upper House seat — vacated by minister Manas Ranjan Bhuniya after being elected as an MLA this summer — till April 2023.

The daughter of Northeast Congress veterans, Santosh Mohan Dev and Vithika Dev, she had been an MLA and an MP of the Congress before. Dev is a Master of Laws from King’s College London.