Opposition Rallies Behind Mamata as ECI Freezes TMC Symbol; Congress Decries Nandigram Arrest

Opposition parties closed ranks behind former West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday after the Election Commission directed both Trinamool Congress factions to stop using the party's name, All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), and its 'Jora Ghash Phul' (two flowers with grass) symbol in the October 6 bypolls.

Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi said the sequence of events followed a familiar script. 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 and then take away its election symbol. He argued that if an entire party could be taken over, the theft of millions of votes was hardly surprising, and described vote theft, government theft and party theft as markers of a democratic decline. The Election Commission's constitutional duty, he said, was to protect the mandate, but it was instead helping forces that overturn the people's verdict.

AICC general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal called the decision a late-night birthday gift from Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He said those who had fought the BJP under Banerjee's leadership were now being encouraged to rebel against her and to defect with the Commission's help, and accused the poll body of acting as a puppet of the BJP. He also said democracy in West Bengal was on a ventilator and that a 19-year-old case was being used to arrest the party's Nandigram bypoll candidate, Milan Pradhan, describing the arrest as evidence that the BJP would go to any length to hijack democracy. Venugopal added that the Congress, which had fought British rule, would not be frightened by such tactics.

Gandhi had earlier reacted to Pradhan's arrest, calling it no coincidence but political revenge and the murder of democracy. He said the BJP lacked faith in fair elections and sought to cling to power sometimes through vote theft, sometimes by stealing governments and sometimes by stealing parties. The Congress, he said, would neither fear nor bow down.

Other opposition figures weighed in. Aam Aadmi Party national convener Arvind Kejriwal asked whether the BJP expected to win elections this way, calling the development a birthday gift to the country from Modi. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said the Commission's standing would rise if it took decisions that strengthened democratic values, and asked whether the affidavits his party had submitted to it had been received.

The BJP rejected the criticism. National spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi said Rahul Gandhi appeared unaware that parties such as the TMC and the NCP had emerged after breaking away from the Congress, noting that the full name of the NCP contains the word 'Congress' and that the Trinamool Congress also carries the name. He said Sharad Pawar had left the Congress in 1999 over the issue of leadership by a person of foreign origin, while Banerjee had quit in 1997 amid internal troubles and later ousted the Congress from West Bengal. Trivedi described Gandhi's statement as an example of political ignorance and a mockery of his own party's history, and said the BJP and the Jana Sangh had always worked to uphold democratic values.