<noinclude> All India Trinamool Congress (English: All India Grassroots Congress; AITC), colloquially the Trinamool Congress ( TMC) is an Indian political party which is predominantly active in the Indian state of 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 the third largest party in Parliament with 23 members in Lok Sabha and 13 members in Rajya Sabha and 230 MLAs in State legislative assemblies of India, just after BJP and INC. In 2016, the Election Commission recognised TMC as a national political party. History Founding 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. Nandigram movement In December 2006, the people of Nandigram were given notice by Haldia Development Authority that a major portion of Nandigram would be seized and 70,000 people be evicted from their homes to make way for a chemical plant. People started movement against this land acquisition and the TMC helped lead the movement. The Bhumi Uchchhed Pratirodh Committee ('Committee against Land Evictions'; BUPC) was formed to protest against the eviction. On 14 March 2007 the police opened fire and killed 14 villagers and many more went missing. Many sources claimed (and which was supported by the Central Bureau of Investigation in its report) that armed Communist Party of India (Marxist) cadres, along with police, fired on protesters in Nandigram Many intellectuals protested in the streets and this incident gave birth to a new movement. Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist)