In 2011, the party ended the 34-year-long rule of the Left Front in West Bengal. Since then Mamata Banerjee has been eyeing an important place in national politics. The party did extremely well in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and registered victory on 34 seats in West Bengal.


With this decision the Trinamool Congress has joined the league of six other national parties namely BJP, Congress, CPM, BSP, CPI and NCP.
In order to get a national party status, one needs to win at least two per cent of the total seats in the Lok Sabha (11 seats) from at least three different states, or get at least six per cent votes in four states in addition to four Lok Sabha seats, or be recognised as a "state party" in four or more states. The Trinamool meets all the conditions set by the poll panel.

Recognition as a national or a state party ensures that the election symbol of that party is not used by any other political entity in polls across India. Other registered but unrecognised political parties have to choose from a pool of "free symbols" announced by the commission from time to time.

The poll panel had on August 22 amended a rule whereby it will now review the national and state party status of political parties every 10 years instead of the five. Had the rule not been amended, Trinamool Congress would not have been recognised as a national party as it had not performed well in the Arunachal Pradesh Assembly polls and would have lost the state party status there.