Symbol stripped, Mamata faces her darkest hour
Hours after losing TMC’s identity, Banerjee suffered setback as her Nandigram bypoll candidate withdrew from the race
A day of fast-paced developments jolted Mamata Banerjee when she lost the party symbol and her candidate Sanchita Dey Pradhan withdrew her Nandigram bypoll candidature hours after meeting West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari.
On Friday, the Election Commission of India (ECI) ended the tussle between the two factions of Trinamool Congress over ownership of the party’s name and symbol by allotting the Football Player poll emblem to Mamta’s bloc, and the Envelope logo to the Arup Roy-led group. This development comes weeks ahead of the October 6 by-polls in the State and triggered a political war of words between the BJP, the Congress and the former State CM.
Pradhan’s sudden departure from the race came after she met Adhikari in Kolkata, accompanied by her husband Satyajit. Her withdrawal also came just a day ahead of the deadline for withdrawing nominations.
Her withdrawal has left the Banerjee-led All India Trinamool Congress without a candidate in Nandigram. Banerjee said her party will support the Congress candidate.
The development came hours after the ECI allotted the Banerjee -led faction the name Mamata All India Trinamool Congress and a new symbol for the October 6 bypolls. According to the ECI order, the rival group got the name Democratic Trinamool Congress. In an interim order issued on Thursday night, the ECI directed the two sides not to use the party name, All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), and its Jora Ghash Phul (two flowers with grass) symbol for the bypolls, and asked them to submit their preferred names and emblems by Friday morning. The last time the ECI froze a party’s name and symbol was in October 2022, in the case of the Shiv Sena’s name and bow and arrow symbol amid the Uddhav Thackeray-Eknath Shinde split.
Banerjee hit out at the ECI over its decision to freeze the TMC’s name and symbol, and said the move was arbitrary.
She accused the BJP of trying to destroy Opposition parties in the country. Describing the development as a black day for democracy, Banerjee questioned the ECI’s decision to freeze the party’s traditional two flowers and grass symbol, which she said had been associated with the organisation for 28 years. “How can they (EC) freeze my symbol, which has been with us since the beginning for the last 28 years?” she said. “The BJP has looted the elections not in Bengal but also in other States and is now trying to destroy Opposition parties,” she alleged.
Opposition leaders criticised the ECI after it barred 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. She later said that the Congress and her party were ready to work together against the Union Government. “We are in this together. We want BJP to be removed,’’ Banerjee said about her conversation with Rahul Gandhi.
Rahul who reportedly told the former CM that his party was ready to extend any assistance required, later led his party’s attack on the ECI.
“First Shiv Sena, then NCP, and now Trinamool Congress. Every time, the same pattern -- BJP and the ECI 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,” Rahul 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.
The BJP slammed Rahul for accusing the ruling party of Government <chori></i> and party <chori></i> over the TMC symbol row, and said the Congress leader should look at his own party’s history first to realise how it “finished” opposition parties and “toppled” their governments when it was in power.
The October 6 bypoll was necessitated after Adhikari vacated the Nandigram seat to retain Bhowanipore-Mamata Banerjee’s traditional bastion-where he had defeated the then chief minister in the West Bengal assembly elections held in April.
Congress pick for Nandigram Held
Kolkata: Congress candidate for the Nandigram Assembly bypoll, Milan Pradhan, was arrested on Friday for his alleged involvement in the 2007 anti-land acquisition movement there, a senior party leader claimed. "This is nothing but a dirty game of the BJP. Milan had been spearheading the Nandigram movement in 2007. But today, because he has successfully filed his nomination, the police were made to arrest him," he said. Earlier in the day, former Mamata Banerjee had announced her party's support for the Congress in the October 6 Nandigram bypoll. The State police have been tight-lipped about the development.
