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EC’s Trinamool symbol freeze order thaws the ice: Rahul Gandhi dials Mamata Banerjee, extends support
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi told former chief minister Mamata Banerjee that his party was ready to extend any assistance required.
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Opposition leaders on Friday hit out at the Election Commission of India (ECI) after it barred former West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee from using the name and symbol of the party she founded, and prompted a swift outreach by Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, who spoke with Banerjee to express solidarity.
Banerjee later said that the Congress and her party were ready to work together against the central government. “We are in this together. We want BJP to be removed,’’ Banerjee said about her conversation with Gandhi. The former chief minister also announced that her party will support the Congress candidate in the October 6 bypoll from Nandigram after her candidate, Sanchita Pradhan Dey, withdrew her nomination.
Gandhi, who reportedly told the former chief minister that his party was ready to extend any assistance required, later led his party’s attack on the Election Commission.
Deep Dive
“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,” Gandhi said, a reference to the split in the two Maharashtra parties.
“The ECI’s constitutional responsibility is to protect the mandate—but instead, it’s aiding those very forces that overturn the people’s verdict,” he added, calling the issue a fight for every political party and voter seeking free and fair elections.
The outreach marks a notable political shift, given that Banerjee has traditionally maintained closer ties with Sonia Gandhi and contested the state assembly elections earlier this year on its own.
However, the ECI decision has brought them together. In an interim order on Thursday, ECI barred the Trinamool Congress-led by Mamata Banerjee and the rebel faction led by Ritabrata Banerjee from using the party name and symbol for the West Bengal bypolls.
On Friday, the Election Commission recognised the Ritabrata Banerjee-led faction as “Democratic Trinamool Congress” and allotted the envelope symbol. Mamata Banerjee’s faction will be called “Mamata All India Trinamool Congress” with the football player symbol. Both groups have been recognised as political parties in West Bengal, Meghalaya and Tripura.
The rift in the TMC follows the BJP’s victory in the West Bengal assembly elections, where it won 207 of 294 seats to end 15 years of TMC rule. Following the defeat, 57 of the 80 TMC legislators backed Ritabrata Banerjee, whom assembly speaker Rathindra Nath Bose recognised as the Leader of the Opposition. The Mamata-led TMC was left with nine Rajya Sabha members after Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, Sushmita Dev and Prakash Chik Baraik resigned in June, joined the BJP and were reelected to the upper House on July 24. A fourth TMC Rajya Sabha member, actor Koel Mallick, also resigned from the Rajya Sabha.
TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee questioned the ECI’s interim order saying that the Ritabrata faction had no legal claim over AITC’s name and symbol. “Interim order only can be issued when a prima facie case is there. And what we have said about the resolution, no prima facie case has been made,” he said, further adding that the “Flowers and Grass” symbol should have been issued by Mamata Banerjee.
Kalyan also questioned the rival faction’s claim that the AITC ceased to exist in 2025, pointing to their earlier recognition of the party. “On 3rd June, they went to the Speaker and said, ‘We are the bloc of the AITC.’ Therefore, up to that day, they accepted the existence of the AITC. All of a sudden, on 22nd June, they said there is no AITC,” he said, adding that the dispute was driven by Ritabrata Banerjee’s failure to be chosen as Opposition leader.
Congress leader Pawan Khera alleged that BJP was using the ECI to influence the electoral system, saying that the party does not believe it has enough electoral popularity to win by itself.
“The BJP does not trust its popularity to speak for itself. It sneaks back into power through the back door— with the ECI at its side,” said Khera.
TMC leader Saket Gokhale targeted the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, alleging that he was colluding with the BJP to “steal TMC’s symbol”.
“We met the ECI last week and clearly saw how the compromised crook CEC Gyanesh Kumar is trying to steal TMC’s symbol… He is Amit Shah’s pet and broker,” said Gokhale on X, alleging that the ECI raised the dispute over the party symbol only after the Bengal bypolls were announced.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said the Election Commission’s decisions should strengthen democratic values and enhance its prestige, further asking, “Have the affidavits we submitted to the Election Commission been received?”
BJP national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi hit back at Rahul Gandhi, saying his remarks reflected a lack of understanding of his own party’s history. Noting that Sharad Pawar left Congress in 1999 and Mamta Banerjee broke away in 1997, Trivedi said that both NCP and TMC had emerged from splits or breakaways from the Congress itself.
“In the process of accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party, he apparently does not even pay attention to which parties he is naming… The full form of NCP is the Nationalist Congress Party, which broke away from the Congress. The word ‘Congress’ is in the name of Trinamool Congress itself,” said Trivedi, referring to the LoP’s post on X.
Citing Congress’s history of internal splits, Trivedi said, “In 1984, Congress engineered a split in the National Conference and broke it apart. In Bihar, Congress engineered the split in the Lok Dal…The Congress, from 1885 until today, there has hardly been a period of 20 years in which Congress has not split,” he said.
“If Rahul Gandhi ji does not know this, then I think, forget about being the Leader of Opposition, Rahul Gandhi ji is not even qualified to be the leader of the Congress. A person who does not know the history of his own party,” Trivedi added.
“The Bharatiya Janata Party is the only political party—from the days of the Jana Sangh until today—in which there has never been a vertical division. And if any leader ever left, they experienced that the dignity, respect and self-respect they received in the Bharatiya Janata Party was not received anywhere else,” Trivedi said, arguing that unlike Congress, BJP did not “finish off” its party members and leaders.
“Rahul Gandhi ji’s statement today is once again an example of his ignorance of Indian politics, his ignorance of his own party, his hostility towards the Bharatiya Janata Party and of making a mockery of his own party’s history,” he said.
