Election Commission to hear Mamata and Ritabrata camps' fight over Trinamool on 30 October

The Election Commission will hear the dispute over who owns the Trinamool Congress on 30 October, setting up the next round in the fight between Mamata Banerjee and the rebel faction led by Ritabrata Banerjee.

Both factions have been told of the date. The hearing will be held at the commission’s headquarters in New Delhi before its top officials, with Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar expected to sit.

Ritabrata Banerjee, the Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, claims the party’s name and its “flowers and grass” symbol on the strength of what his camp says is majority support in the organisation after the party’s defeat in the 2026 Assembly election. Mamata Banerjee’s camp, known as the Kalighat faction, says the party cannot be separated from her leadership.

On 17 September, after a second hearing, the commission ruled that “neither of the two groups shall be permitted to use the name of the party ‘All India Trinamool Congress’” or its reserved symbol in the bypolls. Mamata’s group fought as “Mamata All Trinamool Congress” with a football as its symbol; Ritabrata’s as the “Democratic Trinamool Congress” with an envelope. The bypolls in Nandigram and Rejinagar were held on 6 October.

“We have presented our case to the Commission based on facts,” Ritabrata said after the September hearing, adding that the Trinamool “is not the ancestral property of any family”.

In a separate case, the Lok Sabha Speaker has given 20 rebel Trinamool MPs until 20 October to answer petitions seeking their disqualification.