Didi’s faction will be ‘Mamata All India Trinamool Congress’, EC said

NEW DELHI: Election Commission, a day after it temporarily froze Trinamool Congress’ ‘flowers and grass’ poll symbol in view of the split in party, allotted a new set of party names and symbols to the rival factions led by Mamata Banerjee and Arup Roy.EC approved the name ‘Mamata All India Trinamool Congress’ for the group led by Mamata and allotted it the ‘football player’ poll symbol. The rival faction led by Arup was allotted the name ‘Democratic Trinamool Congress’ and ‘envelope’ poll symbol. The commission, in its order issued Friday, said it shall treat both the factions as recognised political parties in the states of West Bengal, Meghalaya and Tripura. The new party names and symbols for Trinamool factions paved the way for their respective candidates to contest the Oct 6 bypoll to Nandigram and Rejinagar assembly seats in Bengal as well as Nagaon parliamentary seat in Assam. In Rejinagar, the Mamata faction had fielded Rabiul Alam Chodhury, and the Arup faction had fielded Saifuzzaman Sheikh as an AITC candidate.

Similarly, in Nandigram, the Mamata faction authorised Sanchita Pradhan as the AITC candidate, while the Arup faction signed the nomination papers for Ehteshmul Haque. In Nagaon, the Mamata faction fielded Abdul Salam as an AITC candidate. EC Friday said bereft of its intervention, the returning officers would be bound to reject the nomination papers of candidates fielded by both factions, in view of the interim freeze on AITC’s reserved symbol. This, they said, would “deprive the electors of a fair electoral competition and prejudice the outcome of elections”. “To protect the democratic rights of the electors, preserve the integrity of the electoral process, and ensure that no candidate or faction is unfairly prejudiced pending a final determination of the dispute”, EC ruled that the nomination papers filed by candidates of both factions would not be invalidated, subject to fulfilment of statutory requirements.