Kolkata, Sep 18 (PTI) The EC’s decision to assign new names and symbols to the two rival TMC factions triggered a sharp political face-off on Friday, with the Mamata Banerjee camp challenging its detractors to demonstrate their support on the streets while the Ritabrata Banerjee faction used the new identities to attack what it described as personality-driven politics.
The Mamata Banerjee-led faction of Trinamool Congress will fight the October 6 bypolls in West Bengal on the ‘Football Player’ symbol, while the Arup Roy-led group will contest with ‘Envelope’ as its poll emblem, the Election Commission said on Friday.
Senior TMC leader Kalyan Banerjee challenged the Ritabrata camp, asking Trinamool workers across Bengal to assemble at the Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata and physically demonstrate which faction commands greater support.
“Let Trinamool workers from every corner of Bengal come to Brigade Parade Ground. Divide the field into two sides with a rope, and the numbers on either side will speak for themselves. Everyone will see just how many people actually stand with Mamata Banerjee — and how many truly stand by the ideology they claim to uphold,” he said.
The challenge sought to shift the argument from the Election Commission’s nomenclature decision to the more politically consequential question of who commands the party’s grassroots machinery and cadre.
Ritabrata, meanwhile, sought to turn the EC’s allocation of the name Democratic Trinamool Congress into a political statement in itself.
“This highlights the nature of a party driven by an individual cult,” he said, referring to the Mamata-led faction being allotted the name Mamata All India Trinamool Congress.
“In politics, concepts like private limited companies or dynastic heirs hold no meaning. There is no such thing as ownership in the political system,” Ritabrata said.
He stressed that the name allotted to his faction did not carry the name of an individual.
“Nobody’s name is in our party’s name. We had not even discussed putting any individual’s name in it. We are emphasising democracy. This is not a party owned by an individual. That is harmful to democracy,” he said.
Ritabrata also struck a measured note on the Commission’s decision, saying his faction had submitted Nationalist Trinamool Congress, West Bengal Trinamool Congress and Democratic Trinamool Congress as its three preferences.
The EC, he said, had explained why the first two names could not be allotted, while granting the faction its first choice of symbol — the envelope.
“We make decisions collectively. We started reaching out to people just last night, and a virtual meeting took place this morning,” he said, adding that there was no question of questioning the Commission’s authority and that its decision would be respected.
The response from the Mamata camp was markedly different in tone, seeking to project the former chief minister as inseparable from the political identity of the Trinamool Congress she founded nearly three decades ago.
TMC MLA Kunal Ghosh reinforced that message in a post on social media, sharing a photograph of himself in football attire with a ball at his feet.
“Khela hobe (there will be a game). Mamata-di’s name is enough. Trinamool Congress is her creation and her right,” he wrote.
The choice of a footballer as the Mamata faction’s symbol also gave the camp an opportunity to revive one of its most recognisable political slogans — “Khela hobe”, which became a defining refrain of the 2021 Assembly election campaign.
The rival camp, however, is attempting to give the word “Democratic” in its newly allotted name a larger political meaning, presenting the organisational split as a challenge to the concentration of authority around Mamata. PTI PNT NN
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