NEW DELHI: Lok Sabha leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi on Friday slammed the Election Commission for barring TMC from using party name and symbol in the upcoming assembly bypolls in West Bengal, accusing the poll panel and Bharatiya Janata Party of joining forces to split a party.In a social media post on X, Rahul pointed towards the past examples of split in shiv Sena and NCP.“First Shiv Sena, then NCP, and now Trinamool Congress. Every time, the same pattern—BJP and the Election Commission join forces to split a party. Then its election symbol is snatched away,” the Congress leader said.“When an entire party can be stolen, it’s hardly surprising that the votes of millions of Indians can be stolen too,” he added.Rahul also said that “vote chori, sarkaar chori and now party chori have become the symbols of democratic decline” in the country.“Vote theft. Government theft. Now party theft—these have become symbols of our democratic decline. The ECI’s constitutional responsibility is to protect the mandate—but instead, it’s aiding those very forces that overturn the people’s verdict,” the Congress leader said.“This fight isn’t just Mamata Banerjee’s. It’s the fight of every political party, every voter who wants free and fair elections,” he added.Rahul’s remarks came after the poll panel, in its interim order, ruled that neither faction of TMC can use its name or “flowers and grass” symbol after acknowledging a split between factions led by Mamata Banerjee and Arup Roy.Both groups will have to contest the bypolls under different names and with election symbols allotted by the Commission. This arrangement will continue until the dispute is finally settled.EC said two rival groups each claimed to be the “real” party, requiring substantive determination under Paragraph 15 of the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968. It said the interim measure, based on precedents, would place them on an “even keel”.
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The poll panel has been hearing competing claims from the two factions over control of the party, its name and election symbol. Both sides have submitted documents and appeared before the Commission during the proceedings.The dispute reached the Election Commission in July after the rival factions staked competing claims to control of the TMC. The panel subsequently sought responses on issues including organisational control, authorised signatories, party assets, name and election symbol.
