In yet another reminder that it is the Election Commission of India (ECI) which wields supreme power when it comes to recognizing/de-recognizing political parties in the country, the ECI has ruled that it can’t entertain TTV Dinakaran’s request and pass orders to allot a symbol of his choice to his group as it is not at all a ‘recognized political party’.

It may be recalled that after the demise of former chief-minister J. Jayalalithaa in December 2016, the ruling AIADMK split into two factions in February last year with the then chief-minister O. Panneerselvam quitting the party to form his own group with the dominant group, which was controlled at that time by Sasikala, had the incumbent chief-minister Edapadi K. Palaniswami becoming the rallying point.

Both the OPS and EPS factions merged in September last year to form the united AIADMK which promptly expelled Dinkaran and his aunt Sasikala from the party.  ECI later disposed off the symbol case recognizing the unified AIADMK as the ‘real AIADMK’ and allotted the ‘Two Leaves’ symbol to it. Dinakaran filed a writ petition with the Delhi High Court before winning the R.K. Nagar by-polls in December,

Dinakaran requested the Delhi High Court to consider granting his faction the name which was earlier allotted to EPS faction by the ECI and pleaded that he be allowed to use ‘pressure cooker’ as his faction’s symbol. When the case came up for hearing, counsel for ECI told the Court that Dinakaran’s faction wasn’t a recognized political entity/party at all and that it can’t allot the symbol as demanded by him.