NEW DELHI: The Election Commission Saturday met with the representatives of both factions of Trinamool Congress, one headed by former West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and the other group headed by West Bengal leader of opposition Ritabrata Banerjee, amid their competing claims to being the real party entitled to the use of its “twin flower” poll symbol.The meeting with EC, amid the dispute over the party’s authorised signatories and organisational elections, gains significance as it comes ahead of the Nandigram and Rejinagar assembly bypolls scheduled for Oct 6. Given that the nominations must be filed by Sept 16, EC may need to take an interim call before that on which of the two factions may contest on the TMC’s reserved symbol, in case both wish to field their own candidates.While the faction led by Mamata claimed there was no internal dispute in the party as the rebel faction was “just a bunch of traitors” and that the national working committee was very much within its five-year term, the Ritabrata faction argued that the party constitution provided for a three-year term that had ended in Feb 2025.
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Mamata’s faction deputed a five-member delegation, comprising Derek O’Brien, Kalyan Banerjee, Sagarika Ghose, Saket Gokhale and advocate Abhinav Singh, to present its arguments. “There is the Mamata Banerjee-led party on one side and a bunch of traitors on the other. These are the same MLAs who fought the election on a TMC ticket five months ago. The TMC chairperson signed the party symbol under which they fought elections. These MLAs received Rs 25 lakh in their bank accounts from the party to contest elections,” it said in a statement.Besides Ritabrata, the five-member delegation of the rebel faction included Akhruzzaman, Arup Roy, Chandrima Bhattacharya and Riju Datt.
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