Mamata Banerjee vs Ritabrata faction before ECI over TMC name, symbol and control

The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Saturday met the two factions of the Trinamool Congress staking claim to the party’s name, symbol and organisational control, ahead of the by-elections in two assembly seats in West Bengal.

This came amid an ongoing tug-of-war between the Mamata Banerjee -loyalists and the rebels led by West Bengal Leader of the Opposition, Ritabrata Banerjee preparing for their first electoral battle in the October 6 bypolls to Nandigram and Rejinagar.

“We have made our submissions. The ECI had some queries. We replied as far as possible. Only the poll panel can say whether they were satisfied with our replies. The ECI may issue an interim order. We will see what order the ECI gives and then we will decide on our future course of action,” Kalyan Banerjee, TMC MP and a member of the five-member delegation representing the Mamata-led faction, told reporters in New Delhi.

The commission is yet to pass any formal order on the dispute. With September 16 as the last date for filing nominations, both groups have urged the poll panel to take a decision at the earliest.

The five-member delegation representing the Mamata Banerjee-led faction comprised Derek O’Brien, Kalyan Banerjee, Sagarika Ghose, Saket Gokhale and advocate Abhinav Singh.

It told the commission that there was no genuine dispute to adjudicate and pointed to the party’s internal elections held every five years to elect its chairperson and subsequently the national working committee.

“The five member TMC delegation also established that internal elections have been held every five years to elect the Chairperson and subsequently the national working committee — in 2006, 2011, 2017 and 2022. This clearly establishes that the TMC Chairperson and national working committee have a five year term,” the delegation said in a statement.

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It also pointed out that the rebel MLAs had contested the recent assembly election on TMC tickets using the party symbol authorised by Banerjee as chairperson. “All these MLAs had received ₹ 25 lakh each in their accounts from the party to fund their election campaigns,” it said.

The Mamata faction also objected to any interim order being passed while the dispute remains under consideration.

The Ritabrata faction, which includes around 60 of 80 newly elected TMC MLAs who broke away after the party’s defeat to the BJP in the assembly election, said its meeting with the commission was “very fruitful”. “We won’t be able to disclose the exact contents of our deliberations with the ECI’s full bench. ‘Na khata. Na Bahi. Jo Mamata Banerjee kahe, wahi sahi’ — this attitude can’t continue in a democratic set-up. The TMC is not a family-centric party and neither anyone’s ancestral property. The party belongs to the grassroot level workers,” Ritabrata Banerjee told reporters.

“We had answered all the queries posed by the ECI. Our replies were based on facts and not on whimsies. We have submitted some documents. The poll panel has asked some more documents to be submitted by the end of the day. We will submit those too.