India’s Election Commission has frozen the All India Trinamool Congress name and its flowers-and-grass symbol for the West Bengal bypolls, placing Mamata Banerjee’s camp and the rival Arup Roy–Ritabrata Banerjee group on equal footing. Neither faction may use the historic brand for the October 6 Nandigram and Rejinagar contests.
On Friday, the Commission allotted Mamata’s group the interim name Mamata All India Trinamool Congress and the free symbol football player. The rebel camp received the Democratic Trinamool Congress and the envelope symbol. Mamata called the freeze a black day and unconstitutional political vendetta, while Congress leaders attacked the Commission as biased.
The rebel side accepted the interim arrangement while claiming eventual ownership of the original identity. The dispute will now move toward a longer Paragraph 15 determination to decide which group is the real Trinamool.