All India Trinamool Congress (AITC)

The All India Trinamool Congress (English: All India Grassroots Congress; abbr. AITC), colloquially the Trinamool Congress (abbr. TMC) is an Indian political party which is predominantly active in West Bengal.  The party is led by Mamata Banerjee, the current Chief Minister of West Bengal, who has led the state since 2011.  It is currently joint third-largest party in the Lok Sabha with 24 seats and the third largest party by Number of MLAs.  It is also the third largest party in Rajya Sabha with 13 seats just after BJP and INC.  In 2016 the Election Committee recognized TMC as a national political party.

 

After being a member of the Indian National Congress (INC) for over 26 years, Mamata Banerjee quit the INC and established the TMC in 1998.  The official election symbol of the TMC is Jora Ghas Phul (two flowers with grass).  In the 1998 Lok Sabha polls, TMC won 7 seats. In the next Lok Sabha election that was held in 1999, Trinamool Congress won 8 seats with BJP, thus increasing its tally by one.  In 2000, TMC won the Kolkata Municipal Corporation Elections.

The party initially joined the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), as part of the Vajpayee government, and were initially quite successful, winning 7 seats in its first election in 1998.  In the 2001 Vidhan Sabha elections, the TMC won 60 seats in alliance with the INC, becoming the principal opposition party.  They suffered big losses in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections and the 2006 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election, and subsequently left the NDA.