Election Commission Freezes TMC's Name and Symbol Amid Mamata-Ritabrata Faction Feud

The Election Commission of India stepped into a bitter internal power struggle within the Trinamool Congress on Thursday, issuing an interim order that freezes the party's official name and its "flowers and grass" symbol, and bars both warring factions from using either while the dispute is heard.

Second meeting in five days

The order followed a second round of talks in five days between the Commission and delegations representing the two rival camps: one led by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the other by Ritabrata Banerjee. Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, along with Election Commissioners Vivek Joshi and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, met both sides again on Thursday after an earlier meeting failed to produce a resolution. Hours later, the Commission announced its interim decision, effectively taking the All India Trinamool Congress name and symbol out of play for both factions until the matter is settled.

Under the order, neither faction can use the party's registered name or symbol in official campaigning or documentation for now. Both sides have been directed to submit three alternative preferred names and symbols to the Commission by 11 AM on Friday, a tight turnaround that reflects the urgency created by upcoming bypolls.

Roots in years of unresolved elections

At the heart of the dispute are long-pending questions about the legitimacy of the Trinamool Congress's internal organisational elections held in 2015, 2017 and 2022, along with disqualification petitions that remain unresolved. The rival camps have each claimed to represent the legitimate leadership of the party, submitting competing sets of documents to the Commission in recent weeks. The Commission's interim order effectively acknowledges that it cannot yet determine which faction has the stronger claim, and has chosen to prevent either side from campaigning under the shared brand in the interim.

Bypolls loom in October

The timing is significant. Assembly bypolls are scheduled for October 6 in two West Bengal constituencies, Nandigram and Rejinagar, both of which carry outsized political symbolism in the state. Nandigram in particular has been a flashpoint in West Bengal politics for nearly two decades. With the Commission's freeze now in place, both TMC factions will have to contest, or decide whether to contest, under new names and symbols that voters have never previously associated with the party, a scenario that could complicate campaigning for both camps in the compressed run-up to polling day.

The dispute has been closely watched in Delhi and Kolkata alike, given the Trinamool Congress's significance as one of India's most prominent regional parties and its role in opposition politics at the national level. Neither faction has yet publicly detailed which alternative names or symbols it intends to propose to the Commission ahead of Friday's deadline, and legal challenges to the interim order are considered likely given the scale of what is at stake for both sides.

This is an original summary based on public reporting. See our editorial policy for how we source, write, and correct our stories.