The All India Trinamool Congress has rejected a report which claimed that ‘Congress’ has been dropped from the party’s name. In a statement, the party clarified that there will be no such changes. The party also added that the name of the party ‘All India Trinamool Congress’ was registered and approved by the Election Commission on January 1, 1998.
The move comes after media reports suggested that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee-led party had dropped ‘Congress’ from its logo, posters, banners and other forms of communication material.
However, the social media pages of the party, Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee and TMC leader in the Upper House of Parliament Derek O Brien still have the new logo. The new logo has ‘Trinamool’ written in Green color with a blue background. The tag line of the new logo is- ‘Amar Aapnar Banglar.’
The party was launched in 1998 after Mamata Banerjee separated herself from the Congress over differences of views and opinions on dealing with the then ruling party of West Bengal i.e. CPI(M). The party came to power in 2011 after defeating the then Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya-led Left Front government. It secured 184 assembly seats and had forged an alliance with Congress. While Left front managed to get 62 seats out of 294 seats in the state assembly.
In 2014 Lok Sabha elections, TMC won on 34 parliamentary constituencies while CPI(M) secured 2, BJP 2 and Congress 4. In 2016 assembly elections, the Trinamool Congress won 211 seats while Congress-Left combine got 76 seats.
In 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the party has declared names of candidates for all 42 Lok Sabha seats. A total of 18 new faces are there in TMC’s list this time. Mamata Banerjee is banking a lot on glamour to win these elections and has fielded 5 celebrities, including actress Mimi Chakraborty, Moon Moon Sen and actor Dev.
Certain leaders are there who have connected with Congress or Left parties. The seven-phase voting in the state will commence on April 11, 2019.
