Haridwar, Sep 18: The Election Commission of India has assigned separate names and election symbols to two rival factions of the erstwhile All India Trinamool Congress, ensuring that both groups will contest upcoming bypolls under new identities while the poll panel considers their competing claims to the original party name and symbol.
The faction led by Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee has been allotted the name “Mamata All India Trinamool Congress” and the “Football Player” symbol. The Commission has recognised the faction as a political party in West Bengal, Meghalaya and Tripura.
The rival faction led by expelled Trinamool Congress legislator Ritabrata Banerjee has been allotted the name “Democratic Trinamool Congress” and the “Envelope” symbol. It too has been recognised as a political party in West Bengal, Meghalaya and Tripura.
The new identities will remain in effect until the ECI takes a final decision on the rival claims over the name All India Trinamool Congress and its “Flowers & Grass” election symbol. Until then, neither faction will contest under the original party identity. The Commission had earlier barred the rival groups from using the original name and reserved symbol for the upcoming bypolls.
The arrangement will apply to the October 6 Assembly bypolls in Nandigram in East Midnapore district and Rejinagar in Murshidabad district, where counting is scheduled for October 9. The Mamata Banerjee-led faction’s candidate in the Nagaon Lok Sabha bypoll in Assam will also contest under the newly allotted “Mamata All India Trinamool Congress” name and “Football Player” symbol.
The development changes the ballot identity of a party that has contested every election since its formation in 1998 under the All India Trinamool Congress name and the “Flowers & Grass” symbol.
The Trinamool Congress was formed after Mamata Banerjee split from the Congress in 1998. It came to power in West Bengal in 2011 and has remained the ruling force in the state since then.
With the ECI’s interim arrangement now in place, the forthcoming polls will mark the first elections in West Bengal since the party’s formation in which the original Trinamool Congress name and its longstanding “Flowers & Grass” symbol will not appear on the ballot.
