The Madurai bench of the Madras High Court on Friday asked the Election Commission to decide before October 31 which faction of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam will get the party’s two-leaves symbol.

The order came after the High Court asked the poll monitoring body to conduct local body elections by November 17.

In March, before a by-election to Tamil Nadu’s RK Nagar constituency, the Election Commission had frozen the party’s two-leaves symbol, and issued new symbols to the warring factions of the party – then led by Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami and O Panneerselvam. Later, the two factions got merged and VK Sasikala and her nephew TTV Dinakaran were removed from party posts. Now the two warring factions are led by Dinakaran and Palaniswani.

On Friday, when the court asked the Election Commission to make a swift decision on the symbol, the commission said the turmoil within the AIADMK had delayed the process, reported The News Minute.