Examine the legal basis and criteria used by the ECI to determine a 'genuine' faction in the event of a political party split.

Political parties are the vehicles of electoral democracy in India, yet their internal ruptures are settled not by courts in the first instance but by the Election Commission of India (ECI), acting as a quasi-judicial authority. The live claim and counter-claim between the Mamata Banerjee and Ritabrata Banerjee factions of the Trinamool Congress over the party's name and twin-flower symbol makes this adjudicatory role topical.

Legal basis of the ECI's power

• Paragraph 15 of the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968 empowers the Commission to decide which rival section of a recognised party is "that party" and is entitled to the reserved symbol [1].
• The Order is subordinate legislation issued under Article 324, not a provision of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 — a distinction often blurred. The RP Act supplies the allied power of registration under Section 29A [2].
• The ECI's jurisdiction is thus over recognition and symbol, distinct from the Speaker's power over individual defectors under the Tenth Schedule.

Criteria applied

• Test of majority, laid down in Sadiq Ali v. ECI (1971): support is counted across both the organisational wing (AICC-type bodies, office-bearers, delegates) and the legislature wing (MPs, MLAs) [3].
• Documentary and numerical evidence — affidavits, lists of authorised signatories, records of organisational elections. In the TMC dispute, the challenging faction claims roughly 65 of 80 MLAs, while the incumbent leadership asserts validity of its term.
• Aims-and-objects and party-constitution test, used where numbers are inconclusive.
• Where the tests are unresolved before a poll, the Commission may freeze the symbol and allot interim symbols, as in Shiv Sena (2023), AIADMK (2017) and LJP (2021) [4].

The framework has served electoral certainty well, yet its heavy reliance on legislative headcount rewards defection over deliberation. Strengthening statutory norms for internal party elections, transparent membership registers and time-bound ECI adjudication would align the process with the constitutional promise of free and fair elections under Article 324.