The Election Commission freezes TMC symbol. Here’s why it matters

The Trinamool Congress has not been declared to belong to either faction. Instead, the Election Commission has done something more consequential for the October bypolls: it has taken the party’s electoral identity out of the hands of both.

In an interim order on September 17, the Election Commission of India barred both rival groups from using the name All India Trinamool Congress simpliciter and the reserved Flowers & Grass symbol. The two groups have been ordered to choose separate names and free symbols for the current by-elections. The final question of who constitutes the recognised TMC remains open.

That distinction is important.

The dispute before the Commission is not simply about a symbol. Under Paragraph 15 of the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968, the ECI can determine which rival section of a recognised political party, if any, constitutes that party. The Commission has now recorded that there are two rival groups — one led by Mamata Banerjee and the other by Arup Roy — with both claiming to be the Trinamool Congress. It has therefore said the dispute requires a substantive determination under Paragraph 15.

But the clock has run ahead of that determination.

The October 6 bypolls in Nandigram and Rejinagar are already underway. The Commission noted that the statutory election timetable leaves insufficient time to complete the Paragraph 15 proceedings before the immediate question of party name and symbol has to be resolved. The urgency became concrete when rival candidates filed nominations in the two constituencies using the same TMC identity: one set authorised by Arup Roy and another by Mamata Banerjee.

The legal dispute running alongside the ECI proceedings makes the picture even more complicated.

On July 7, an Alipore civil court issued an ad-interim injunction restraining Mamata Banerjee and others from interfering with the National Working Committee elected at the June 22 Special Session, which the order described as the only lawful executive body authorised to administer the AITC. The injunction also restrained the defendants from acting as party office-bearers, issuing appointments, dealing with party records, funds, bank accounts or properties, or communicating with constitutional authorities on behalf of the party.

But that order did not settle the electoral question.

On August 6, the same court explicitly clarified that its injunction did not affect the authority of the Election Commission and did not touch the reserved election symbol — a question it said fell exclusively within the ECI’s jurisdiction. On September 16, the injunction was extended again.

The competing camps have meanwhile built their cases around fundamentally different claims.

The Arup Roy-led side argues that the National Working Committee’s tenure expired on February 11, 2025 and that a June 22 Special Session consequently constituted a new organisational structure. The Mamata camp disputes this, arguing that the party constitution and rules provide a five-year tenure and that its existing organisational structure remains valid until 2027. Derek O’Brien told the Commission that the party constitution and rules provide for a five-year term and cited previous organisational-election communications.

The ECI has therefore not handed the TMC to one side. It has frozen the identity both sides claim.

By 11 am on September 18, each faction must submit three preferred names and three preferred free symbols. Those temporary identities will operate only until the Commission reaches its substantive determination under Paragraph 15.

For a party whose electoral identity has been built around one name and one instantly recognisable symbol, this is more than a temporary branding problem.

The immediate question is who contests the bypolls under what identity.

The larger question is who, in law and in organisational fact, is the Trinamool Congress.