BJP and Congress clash over Trinamool symbol freeze as Rahul Gandhi alleges 'party theft'

A row has broken out between the Congress and the BJP after the Election Commission barred two factions of the Trinamool Congress from using the party's existing name and symbol, allotting them fresh identities for the coming Assembly bypolls.

Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi responded sharply, writing on X that the pattern was now familiar. He pointed to the Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party and now the Trinamool Congress, alleging that in each case the BJP and the Election Commission had combined to split a party before its symbol was taken away. He described vote theft, government theft and now party theft as markers of what he called the country's democratic decline.

BJP MP and spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi rejected the charge and turned the attack on the Congress, calling it the "Bhasmasur" of Indian politics — a force that destroys whoever comes into contact with it. Speaking at a press conference, he said the Congress had throughout its history betrayed its allies, pulled down elected State governments in an unconstitutional manner and repeatedly split parties while sidelining its own veteran leaders. The BJP, he said, stood for democratic values and unity.

Mr. Trivedi said Mr. Gandhi was not sufficiently informed to note that the full form of the NCP is the Nationalist Congress Party and that the Trinamool Congress also carries the word "Congress" in its name. He recalled that Sharad Pawar parted ways with the Congress in 1999 over the question of leadership by a person of foreign origin, while Mamata Banerjee left in 1997, distressed by the party's internal situation, and later drove the Congress out of West Bengal.

Citing a series of past episodes, Mr. Trivedi alleged that in the 1969 Presidential election Indira Gandhi had called for votes against her own party's candidate, Neelam Sanjiva Reddy. He also claimed that senior leader Ashok Gehlot had recently been prevented from becoming Congress president, and listed the treatment of Chaudhary Charan Singh during the Janata Party era, the merger of the Lok Dal in Haryana in 1980 and the absorption of Chimanbhai Patel's Janata Dal into the Congress in 1992.

After the Congress returned to power at the Centre in 1980, Opposition governments in nine States were dismissed, he alleged. He cited the humiliation of then Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister T. Anjaiah in 1982, the split of Karpoori Thakur's Lok Dal the same year, the dismissal of N. T. Rama Rao's government in Andhra Pradesh in 1984 and the split of the National Conference that year. He further alleged that the government of then Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar fell within three months in 1991.

Mr. Trivedi also referred to the dismissal of the S. R. Bommai government in Karnataka in 1989, noting that a nine-judge Bench of the Supreme Court ruled in 1994 that a government's majority could be determined only through a floor test in the House and not by the personal opinion of a Governor or the President. He mentioned the 1993-94 Jharkhand Mukti Morcha bribery case as well, and alleged that the Congress had brought down the Union governments led by H. D. Deve Gowda and I. K. Gujral in the late 1990s.