Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Friday criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP )-led government at Centre and the Election Commission of India (ECI) over its interim order freezing the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC)’s name and “Flowers and Grass” election symbol.
The Congress leader’s remarks came a day after the ECI barred rival factions of the Trinamool Congress from using the party’s name and traditional election symbol until the leadership dispute is resolved. Gandhi alleged that the BJP and the ECI had followed a similar pattern in disputes involving Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and now the Trinamool Congress. “First Shiv Sena, then NCP, and now Trinamool Congress. Every time, the same pattern—BJP and the Election Commission join forces to split a party. Then its election symbol is snatched away. When an entire party can be stolen, it’s hardly surprising that the votes of millions of Indians can be stolen too. Vote theft. Government theft. The Congress leader further alleged that the ECI was failing to fulfil its constitutional responsibility to protect voters and was instead helping the BJP overturn election results. “The ECI’s constitutional responsibility is to protect the mandate—but instead, it’s aiding those very forces that overturn the people’s verdict. This fight isn’t just Mamata Banerjee’s. His remarks came amid the ongoing dispute between the two Trinamool Congress factions, both of which have fielded candidates for the upcoming bypolls while staking claim to the party’s traditional name and symbol.
Now party theft—these have become symbols of our democratic decline,” he said in a post on X. It’s the fight of every political party, every voter who wants free and fair elections,” he said.
