The Central Election Commission (CEC) has given a shock to the Jana Sena and some relief to the BRS while allocating election symbols.
The CEC has announced the list of recognised political parties across the nation and the election symbols allocated to them. Surprisingly, the CEC recognised the YSR Congress as a recognised state party in Telangana.
The YSR Congress is not contesting elections in Telangana and its leadership has categorically announced that the YSRC is not interested in contesting in Telangana and that it is confined to Andhra Pradesh. But the CEC gave state party status to the YSRC in Telangana too.
Meanwhile, the CEC has included the Jana Sena party’s election symbol ‘glass tumbler’ in the list of free symbols. The CEC had earlier allotted the ‘glass tumbler’ to the Jana Sena as its symbol.
Accepting the BRS request the CEC has decided to remove symbols like the autorickshaw, iron box and truck from the list of free election symbols in both Telugu states as they are similar to the ‘car’ symbol of the BRS.
But the CEC did not remove eight other symbols from the free list as requested by the BRS during the Munugode by-election.
As per the CEC’s announcement, the BRS, the MIM, the TDP and the YSR Congress have state-party status in Telangana. In Andhra Pradesh, only the YSR Congress and the TDP are recognised as state parties.
In Andhra Pradesh, the Jana Sena is presenting the glass tumbler as its election symbol. Sources said that during the allotment of election symbols to independent candidates, Jana Sena asked the CEC to allot the ‘glass tumbler’ as the common symbol of its candidates.
The CEC may consider it or may allot some other symbol to the Jana Sena. If the CEC does not accept the Jana Sena’s request to allot the ‘glass tumbler’ as its symbol and allots a new symbol Jana Sena candidates will face problems as all these days the Jana Sena was presenting the ‘glass tumbler’ as its election symbol.
If a new symbol is allotted to the Jana Sena, people also will get confused during voting.
Meanwhile, the BRS has asked the CRC to remove some more symbols from the free election symbol list which are similar to their ‘car’ symbol.
During the Munugode Assembly by-election, the BRS submitted a memorandum to the CEC requesting to delete eight symbols from the list of free symbols. The BRS said that the camera, chappati roller, doli, road roller, soap dish, television, sewing machine and the ship had a close resemblance to their ‘car’ symbol.
