TMC COMES A ‘PHOOL’ CIRCLE

Only change is permanent. For the Trinamool Congress, a party born from a split with the Grand Old Party nearly three decades ago, that change has now reached its most recognisable identity — its name and its Flowers and Grass symbol.

Mamata Banerjee’s political journey has long been inseparable from the TMC she founded after breaking away from the Congress in 1998. But after losing power in the 2026 West Bengal Assembly election and subsequently facing an organisational split, her faction is confronting a battle over the party’s identity

The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Sep 17 temporarily froze the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) name and its Flowers and Grass symbol amid competing claims by rival factions. Neither faction can use the original name or symbol for the coming bypolls pending a final determination.

The symbol also carries a personal touch: Banerjee herself sketched the twin flowers emerging from grass when the party was taking shape.

THE BEGINNING

The TMC entered national electoral politics in 1998 after Banerjee broke away from the Congress. It soon established itself as a significant force in West Bengal.

In the 1999 Lok Sabha election, the party won eight seats as an ally of the BJPled National Democratic Alliance, and Banerjee became Union Railway Minister.

The party subsequently expanded its presence in Bengal’s urban politics, including Kolkata, as it sought to establish itself as the principal alternative to the Left Front.

Then came the difficult years.

The TMC was reduced to two Lok Sabha seats in 2004 and won only 30 seats in the 2006 West Bengal Assembly election.

OF SINGUR & NANDIGRAM

The political trajectory changed dramatically with the land acquisition agitations in Singur and Nandigram. Banerjee positioned the TMC at the centre of the anti-land acquisition movements and built its campaign around the slogan Ma, Mati, Manush.

The party gradually consolidated much of the antiLeft vote and emerged as the principal challenger to the CPI(M)-led Left Front.

In 2011 came the breakthrough.

The TMC-led alliance ended the Left Front’s 34- year rule in West Bengal, putting Banerjee in the Chief Minister’s chair and beginning a 15-year tenure in government.

THE SUCCESSION ISSUE

The relationship between Mamata and the organisation she built came under pressure well before the 2026 split.

Questions over succession and the growing influence of Abhishek Banerjee repeatedly produced speculation about differences between the party’s old guard and its younger leadership.

In 2022, amid organisational tensions, Banerjee dissolved the existing national office-bearer committee and reasserted her authority over the party.

But the challenge after the 2026 election was of a different order.

The TMC, which had won 215 of Bengal’s 294 Assembly seats in 2021, was reduced to 80 seats in 2026. The BJP won 207 seats, ending the TMC’s 15- year tenure in government.

The electoral defeat was followed by an internal rebellion and competing claims over control of the organisation.

That dispute eventually reached the Election Commission.

For Banerjee, the symbolism is hard to miss. She broke away from an established party to create the TMC and personally sketched the symbol that became synonymous with her politics. Twenty-eight years later, an internal dispute has temporarily denied her faction the exclusive use of both that name and symbol.

THE NANDIGRAM STORY

Nandigram has again become central to Banerjee’s political story.

Her faction initially fielded Sanchita Pradhan Dey for the Oct 6 Nandigram bypoll. Dey, however, withdrew her candidature after meeting Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari.

Banerjee subsequently announced support for Congress candidate Milan Pradhan, saying she wanted to send a message about Opposition unity beginning from Bengal.

The decision marked a shift in a state where the TMC and Congress have frequently competed against each other despite being constituents of the INDIA bloc nationally.

The sequence also gave the move a tactical context: Banerjee’s support for the Congress came after her faction was left without its own candidate in Nandigram.

POLITICS AND PERSONAL LOSS

Another thread running through Bengal politics has been the entry of candidates into public life following personal tragedy.

• Rukbanur Rahman, elder brother of Rizwanur Rahman, contested the 2010 Kolkata civic election on a TMC ticket but lost. A year later, he won the Chapra Assembly constituency for the TMC.
• In the 2026 Assembly election, Sabina Yasmin, mother of Tamanna Khatun, who was killed in a bomb explosion following the 2025 Kaliganj bypoll, entered the contest from Kaliganj as a CPI(M) candidate.
• The BJP fielded Ratna Debnath, mother of the junior doctor raped and murdered at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in 2024, from Panihati. Debnath won the seat by 28,836 votes. Nandigram now has another candidacy shaped by bereavement.
• The BJP has fielded Hasirani Rath, mother of Chandranath Rath, a close aide of Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari who was shot dead in May.

And so Nandigram once again sits at the intersection of Bengal’s past and its unsettled political present.

For Banerjee, however, this moment is larger than one bypoll. The party she created after leaving the Congress, the symbol she drew herself and the political organisation she led to power are now caught in a battle over identity and control.

The Flowers and Grass may be frozen for now, but the dispute over who inherits the Trinamool legacy is far from over.

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY THE AUTHOR ARE PERSONAL

Robin Roy, The writer is Senior Journalist and former Managing Editor, First India