Kolkata: Election Commission on Friday allotted the ‘football player’ symbol to the Mamata Banerjee camp of Trinamool Congress, which for now will be known as ‘Mamata All India Trinamool Congress’.The rival faction — led by leader of opposition in the assembly, Ritabrata Banerjee — will be known as ‘Democratic Trinamool Congress’ and contest elections on the ‘envelope’ symbol till the poll panel decides on the warring blocs’ claims to the name and ‘flowers-and-grass’ symbol of the party founded by Mamata in Jan 1998.EC had on Thursday night issued an interim order freezing the name ‘All India Trinamool Congress’ and the party symbol, asking both camps to submit options for a new party name and symbol by 11am on Friday.The Mamata camp submitted three names — ‘Mamata All India Trinamool Congress’, ‘All India Trinamool Congress Mamata’ and ‘Trinamool Mamata Congress’ — at 11.36 pm on Thursday. For the symbol, it proposed ‘football player’ and ‘cricket bat’.The commission approved the first option on both lists.The Ritabrata camp, which sent its lists on Friday morning, proposed ‘Nationalist Trinamool Congress’, ‘West Bengal Trinamool Congress’ and ‘Democratic Trinamool Congress’ for its name. Its preferred symbols were ‘envelope’, ‘blackboard’ and ‘torch’. The poll panel chose the third option from the names’ lists and the first from the other.The Mamata camp also challenged EC’s decision in Supreme Court, making Ritabrata a respondent.Stripped of the name she had coined and the symbol she had designed for the party, Mamata said EC’s decision had ushered in a “dark day in the history of democracy” and vowed to “fight and bounce back strongly”.“What is happening is unfortunate, unconstitutional, anti-democratic and politically biased. It is being done to serve the interests of one political party. Before us, they took away Uddhav Thackeray’s party symbol (Shiv Sena). They split NCP. And now they are coming after us,” Mamata Banerjee told reporters in Kalighat on Friday afternoon.“Since the bypoll process (in Nandigram and Rejinagar) is underway, we temporarily submitted a list of names and symbols. That does not mean we have accepted the decision. We will reclaim our original symbol. I cannot walk away from All India Trinamool Congress. I founded this party and built it through 28 years of struggle, sacrifice and political effort. As long as I live, this party will remain a part of me and stay with our workers.”Hitting back at Mamata, Ritabrata said, “This is the nature of a party built on personality cult. In politics, concepts like ‘private limited company ’ or ‘dynastic heir’ does not exist. There is no such thing as ownership in the political system.”Earlier in the day, he had posted on X: “Politics is a permanent war; a war at every hour; a war at every minute; a war at every second — a war that changes interests, needs, and priorities.”EC said both organisations will be treated as registered and recognised political parties in Bengal, Meghalaya and Tripura till further orders.The ‘envelope’ symbol allocated to the Ritabrata camp quickly ran into controversy. Previously, ISF had contested elections on the ‘envelope’ symbol. The ISF candidate for the Nandigram bypoll, Mohammad Sabe Miraj Ali Khan, said they, too, had asked for the symbol and demanded that it be allotted to them again.An official said, “Election symbols are reserved for recognised parties. ISF is not a recognised party, so they were allotted ‘envelope’ from the list of free symbols.”
