‘Footballer’ for Didi, ‘Envelope’ for rebels: The Trinamool symbol war

The Mamata Banerjee group, it is learnt, had responded to the commission with three options for the party name, including the “Mamata All India Trinamool Congress”. The faction, sources said, had submitted two options for the poll symbol: one featuring a football player, and the other, a cricket bat.

The Arup Roy faction, represented by Ritabrata Banerjee, the Leader of Opposition in West Bengal Assembly, had put forward two names: Jatiyatabadi Trinamool Congress – meaning Nationalistic Trinamool Congress – and Ganatantrik Trinamool Congress (Democratic Trinamool Congress). The group suggested three options for its poll symbol: a blackboard, an envelope and a torch. Eventually, the poll body cleared the name, ‘Democratic Trinamool Congress’ and the envelope symbol.

Earlier, Ritabarate Banerjee welcomed the Election Commission’s decision to freeze Trinamool’s name and symbol. “The Election Commission’s decision to freeze name and symbol reflected that a political party cannot be a private limited company. Two bypolls are scheduled to be held shortly. We have sent our alternatives to the Election Commission. It is a fight between the collective and the cult.”

What Election Commission said

In its interim order on Thursday, the Election Commission said, “On due consideration of the totality of information available on record…the Commission is of the opinion that there are two rival groups in All India Trinamool Congress, one led by Ms. Mamata Banerjee and the other led by Shri Arup Roy, and each group is now claiming to be the party and therefore the matter requires a substantive determination by the Commission under Para 15 of the Election Symbols (Reservation & Allotment) Order 1968.”

It added that the two factions would not be allowed to use the party’s name and “flowers and grass” symbol till the Election Commission’s final order in the dispute case. With both sides nominating candidates for the bypolls, the commission decided to issue an interim order allotting them new names and symbols for the time-being.

“Both the groups shall be known by such names as they may choose for their respective groups, including, if they so desire, linkage with their parent party ‘All India Trinamool Congress’; and both the groups shall also be allotted such different symbols as they may choose from the list of free symbols notified by the Election Commission for the purposes of the current bye-elections,” the order said.

Big blow for Mamata

The Election Commission’s move to freeze the Trinamool’s name and symbol is a big setback for Mamata Banerjee. As the rebel camp welcomed the development and the BJP claimed Banerjee’s party is now “on the deathbed”, her loyalists called the poll body’s decision “illegal”.
The Banerjee-led faction is struggling to recover from the drubbing it took in the Bengal polls earlier this year, and the mutinies that followed. Losing the party’s name and symbol at this point would only compound the firebrand leader’s troubles.

Bypolls to Nandigram and Rejinagar are to be held on October 6. After the Durga Puja festive season, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and Howrah Municipal Corporation will go to polls. Mamata Banerjee’s camp and the rebel faction have put up candidates in the two bypolls. “Our leader Mamata Banerjee has taken up the challenge. The EC decision will indeed have an effect, but people trust Mamata Banerjee’s face. We will fight the assembly bypolls under Mamata Banerjee. That is what matters, not symbols. But it is a sad day since Mamata Banerjee herself made the symbol and chose the party’s name 28 years back,” said a Mamata Banerjee loyalist and a senior leader in her camp.

Congress, AAP, SP back Mamata

The Congress and AAP have come out in Banerjee’s support following the Election Commission’s decision.

Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, alleged that the BJP and the Election Commission follow the same pattern to split parties. “First Shiv Sena, then NCP, and now Trinamool Congress. Every time, the same pattern — BJP and the Election Commission join forces to split a party. Then its election symbol is snatched away. When an entire party can be stolen, it’s hardly surprising that the votes of millions of Indians can be stolen too. Vote theft. Government theft. Now party theft – these have become symbols of our democratic decline,” he said in a post on X.

“The ECI’s constitutional responsibility is to protect the mandate—but instead, it’s aiding those very forces that overturn the people’s verdict. This fight isn’t just Mamata Banerjee’s. It’s the fight of every political party, every voter who wants free and fair elections,’ Rahul Gandhi shared in a post on X.

Backing Banerjee, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal wrote on X, “Modi ji’s birthday gift to the country. Will they win the election this way?” Quoting a media report which stated that both factions had been allotted separate symbols, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said: “If the Election Commission takes decisions to empower democratic values, it will enhance its prestige and honour. And there’s nothing more to say… just this question: Have the affidavits we submitted to the Election Commission been received?”