Calculations that cost Trinamool Congress its national party status

While the Trinamool Congress has hinted that it might take to the legal path against the decision of the Election Commission of India (ECI) to cancel its national party status, analysts doubt how far that step will be fruitful in the backdrop of some calculations based on which the party has received the setback.

One important condition for retaining the national party status is that the political party concerned should have two per cent of the total Lok Sabha seats and that should be from three Indian states.

In case of Trinamool Congress, although it has more than two per cent of the total Lok Sabha seats, they are all from the single state of West Bengal.

Another condition is that the party should have the state-party status in at least four Indian states. Now to get the state-party status, the political party concerned should have at least two elected representatives in the state Assembly concerned and six per cent of the votes polled in the last elections in that state.

In case of Trinamool Congress, besides West Bengal, where it is the ruling party, it is only in Meghalaya where Trinamool has five elected legislators and secured 13.78 per cent of total votes polled in the last elections there.

Despite Trinamool Congress contesting from Goa and Tripura, neither a single party candidate from any of these two states got elected nor it secured the required percentage of the votes polled. In the last Tripura Assembly polls, the vote percentage in favour of Trinamool Congress was 0.88 per cent which was even lesser than NOTA.

In case of the 2022 Goa Assembly polls, the party vote share was 5.21 per cent of the total votes polled.

The Trinamool Congress secured the national party status in 2016, which was the year when it came to power in West Bengal for the second consecutive term. This means that Trinamool Congress will be able to contest with its registered party symbol only in West Bengal and Meghalaya where it still enjoys state- party status. In the case of other states they will have to remain satisfied with free symbols.

--IANS

src/dpb