SNCN ACHARYULU
As expected, the election symbol has become a headache to the Jana Sena in the coming Andhra Pradesh Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. Interestingly, the headache of Jana Sena on the election symbol issue will become a headache to the TDP also. In fact, it will become a headache to the TDP and not to the Jana Sena.
The Election Commission has included the ‘glass tumbler’ in the list of free symbols in the forthcoming Andhra Pradesh Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. At present the glass tumbler symbol is available in the free list in all the 175 Assembly and 25 Lok Sabha constituencies in Andhra Pradesh. It may be recalled that the Jana Sena candidates in the previous elections in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana also used glass tumbler as their election symbol. The Jana Sena is also campaigning extensively that the glass tumbler is its election symbol.
In Andhra Pradesh Assembly and Lok Sabha elections, the TDP, Jana Sena and the BJP have an alliance. After leaving the Assembly and Lok Sabha seats to the Jana Sena and the BJP, the TDP is contesting in 140 Assembly and 17 Lok Sabha seats.
Unless the Election Commission changes its decision, the glass tumbler headache will continue to the Jana Sena. If the Election Commission reserves the glass tumbler to the Jana Sena, its candidates will get glass tumbler as a common election symbol. But if the Election Commission follows the theory it followed in the recent Telangana Assembly elections, it will become a headache to the TDP.
In the Telangana Assembly elections, the Election Commission made glass tumbler a free symbol, except where the Jana Sena contested. If the same thing is followed in AP, the glass tumbler will become a free election symbol in the constituencies where the TDP and BJP candidates are contesting. The Jana Sena will campaign about glass tumbler as its election symbol in the constituencies where its candidates are contesting. If this influence will have effect on the people and if any independent candidate contests with the election symbol glass tumbler, people may vote to that symbol feeling that Jana Sena is contesting. Then the TDP candidate will lose that votes in the crucial Assembly elections.