Hyderabad: The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has filed a petition in the Delhi High Court seeking the removal of ‘car-like’ emblems from the Central Election Commission’s (CEC) free symbols.
According to media reports, the petition argues that the appearance of road roller-like symbols resembling a car, which is the BRS’ symbol, could harm its prospects in the elections.
The Delhi court is scheduled to hear the petition on Thursday, August 12.
The BRS in the past had requested the Central Election Commission multiple times to remove such symbols from the list and prevent their assignment to any political outfits.
The road roller symbol was removed in the past but was reinstated and the BRS objected to its reinstatement. The EC has advised independent candidates not to use symbols resembling cars in election symbols allotted to unrecognised parties.
In a letter on September 27, the party objected to the ECI’s decision to allot the ‘road roller’ symbol to the Yuga Thulasi Party (YTP) and urged the country’s poll regulatory body to reverse its CALL at the earliest.
“We believe that this allocation raises significant questions as to the fairness and transparency in the electoral process. There is a strong possibility of the similarity between the road roller symbol and our party’s car symbol causing confusion among the voters, particularly those from rural background and those who are illiterate and elderly. Such confusion among the voters has already resulted in diversion of BRS votes to some inconsequential independents in the previous Assembly and Lok Sabha polls,” the BRS said in its letter.
It had urged the EC to refrain from allocating symbols such as a camera, chapati roller, road roller, soapdish, television, sewing machine, ship, autorickshaw, and truck, as they are ‘similar’ to the car symbol on the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM).
