The Supreme Court on Monday set a four-month deadline for the Election Commission to decide the dispute between the two rival factions of the All India Trinamool Congress over the party’s name and “flowers and grass” election symbol.Asking the rival TMC factions to complete their filing of affidavits and counter affidavits before the Election Commission in four weeks, a Bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana directed the poll panel to decide the issue in three months thereafter.The top court turned down a request made on behalf of the Election Commission by senior advocate Dama Seshadri Naidu for six months to decide the dispute. “Three-month period is good enough… If some extreme exigency arises, come before us,” the Bench told Naidu.The direction came after senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Kalyan Bandhopadhyay, representing the Mamata Banerjee-led faction, submitted that they filed their responses in July itself but the other side was yet to file their affidavit.The Ritabrata Banerjee-led faction was represented by senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi and NK Kaul. On September 21, the Bench had agreed to urgently list for hearing former West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee’s petition challenging the EC’s decision to freeze the ‘Trinamool Congress’ name and symbol following a dispute between two rival factions of the party.Earlier, the EC had issued an interim order barring both the groups from using the ‘All India Trinamool Congress’ name and symbol. It said the matter required substantive determination under provisions of the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968.The poll panel had allotted separate names and symbols to the two TMC factions and reserved the TMCs symbol pending a substantive determination of the dispute. On September 18, Banerjee had attacked the EC over its decision to freeze the TMC name and its ‘jora ghash phul’ symbol, likening the loss of the party’s identity to the pain of a mother losing her child and calling it a “black day” for the country’s democracy.