Just before the by-elections in West Bengal, the name and symbol of Trinamool Congress, the party formed by Mamata Banerjee, has been frozen. The reason for this is the split in the party. After some time it will be decided who will have the rights on the name and symbol of this party. Within the last few years, this is the fourth or third such big party in which there has been a dispute regarding name and symbol due to such a split. Earlier, the same thing has happened with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) formed by Sharad Pawar, Lok Janshakti Party formed by Ram Vilas Paswan and Shiv Sena formed by Bal Thackeray. This is neither the first time nor the last time. History is witness to the fact that there have been many political parties whose founders lost their name and identity.
The name of the country's oldest party Congress is also included in this list. Sometimes Congress (I) was formed, sometimes Congress (O) and sometimes Congress (R) came into existence. Similarly, the symbols of Congress also kept changing. The election symbol of the Indian National Congress as we know it at present is the hand's paw but it came into existence in the year 1978. Similarly, many factions of Lok Dal and Janata Dal were also formed which are still in existence. Now it seems that the same is going to happen with Trinamool Congress also.
congress fight
Although many Congress leaders left the party and formed different parties at different times, but for the first time in the year 1969, a claim was made on the party itself. From 1952 to 1969, the election symbol of this Congress was a pair of two oxen. When Indira Gandhi was expelled from the party Congress on 12 November 1969 and the Congress divided into two, the symbol of a pair of oxen also got frozen. Indira Gandhi initially contested the election on the symbol of cow and calf, but when her party was considered the real party, she changed the symbol to the symbol of hand and paw.
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In this way, the symbol of a pair of bulls, once frozen, no longer exists and Congress has been contesting elections on the paw symbol since 1980.
Disintegration of Janata Dal
Initially, when Janata Party was formed, its symbol was 'Farmers and Plough'. Later, when this party merged with Janata Dal, this symbol was frozen. Not only this, when Janata Dal later got divided into many pieces, its election symbol 'wheel' was also frozen. Now, Janata Dal (United), which emerged from the same Janata Dal, is carrying forward its politics with bow and arrow and Janata Dal (Secular) with 'women carrying grains'.
Freezes and one group gets marks
AIADMK (2017): When Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalitha passed away, there was a controversy regarding AIADMK. Then the Election Commission had frozen the symbol with two leaves and the name of the party. Then one faction named AIADMK (Amma) got the 'cap' symbol and the other faction AIADMK (PTA) got the 'electric pole' symbol. Later Palaniswami's faction got the name and symbol of the real party.
Lok Janshakti Party (2021): A similar controversy happened when Ram Vilas Paswan died. Then the symbol of this party was Bangla. As the dispute escalated, the mark and name were frozen. Later, the real name and symbol went to Pashupati Paras and Chirag Paswan named his party Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas).
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There was a rift between NCP and Shiv Sena: Similarly, the real faction of NCP, the party formed by Sharad Pawar, first went to Ajit Pawar and then to Sunetra Pawar and the election symbol Ghadi also went to this faction. Sharad Pawar had to be satisfied with the name of NCP (Sharad Pawar). Similarly, Shiv Sena, which was formed by Uddhav Thackeray's father Bal Thackeray, has now become its leader, Eknath Shinde and Uddhav Thackeray has to be content with the name of Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray).
It seems that now it is the turn of Trinamool Congress. The reason for this is that more than two-thirds of its MPs have gone to another party. At the same time, the MLAs have increased the problems of Mamata Banerjee by claiming that they are the original party.