Kolkata: Calcutta High Court on Monday pulled up Election Commission for its “conduct” during the hearing of a dispute over an election symbol, suggesting a “connivance” between the poll body and Democratic Trinamool Congress, which was allotted the ‘envelope’ symbol that was previously with Indian Secular Front (ISF).“Conduct of the parties reveals connivance between them. If the ECI has been guided by the private party, then what remains? You cannot take assistance from a private party,” Justice Krishna Rao told the EC counsel, prompting the latter to clarify that he was “not being guided” by Democratic Trinamool’s counsel.The court was hearing an appeal by ISF against EC’s decision to allot ‘envelope’, the symbol with which it contested Lok Sabha polls and the 2026 assembly polls, to Democratic Trinamool for the upcoming bypolls in Nandigram and Rejinagar.Pursuant to the bench’s question whether the Commission could legally allot the symbol to Democratic Congress, EC counsel Jishnu Chowdhury submitted that ‘envelope’ was a ‘common symbol’ given to ISF, a registered but unrecognised political party, to fight just the assembly election and such an allocation did not create a right for ISF to seek the same symbol for the bypolls. He also submitted that a by-election was not a continuation of the assembly election, as argued by ISF.The EC counsel added that symbol allotment was the commission’s discretion and it had acted according to law by allotting ‘envelope’ to Democratic Trinamool and ‘almirah’ to ISF.ISF’s counsel, senior advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya, argued that such discretion should be exercised “reasonably and rationally” and “cannot be absolute like an autocrat.” Calling the symbol reassignment an “absolutely illegal” act, Bhattacharyya suggested that the bypoll could be deferred and doing so would not lead to a constitutional crisis.The judgment in the case has been reserved.
