The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Praja Rajyam may go to court over symbol

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Tuesday, Jan 06, 2009
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Praja Rajyam may go to court over symbol

Special Correspondent

Long wait for response from EC

Common symbol for party sought from out of 59 free symbols
Delay cutting into time available till polls for publicising symbol

HYDERABAD: The Praja Rajyam will file a petition in the High Court seeking a direction to the Election Commission for allotment of a common symbol for its party candidates in the general election if the latter does not does not do so in the next two to three days.

Evidence

It is now almost ten days since Praja Rajyam president Chiranjeevi and former Union Law Minister P. Shiv Shanker presented to the Election Commission a large volume of evidence to buttress their case for allotment of a common symbol to the party from out of the 59 free symbols. The party leadership is now getting anxious over the long wait for the EC’s response which is cutting into the time available till the elections for publicising its symbol.

“We will wait for two or three days for a reply from the Election Commission and, if there is none, we will follow our roadmap,” Mr. Shiv Shankar told this correspondent on Monday.

In doing so, the Praja Rajyam will be taking a cue from the experience of Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) which was allotted a common symbol – the Ambassador car. The Election Commission has discretionary powers on allotment of symbols but has rarely exercised them and refused to make an exception in the TRS’ case. Upon this, the TRS approached High Court which asked the EC to ‘consider’ allotment of a common symbol.

Mass following

The TRS then had a track record of contesting the panchayat elections but the fledgling Praja Rajyam has no history of contesting any election whatsoever. To prove that the party yet has a mass following, Mr. Chiranjeevi and Mr. Shiv Shankar furnished proof of the huge attendances at the former’s public meetings.

Mr. Shiv Shanker said he did not feel that taking recourse to legal action would antagonise the EC towards the Praja Rajyam. “Don’t we approach higher courts when we are not satisfied by the verdict of a lower court?” he asked.

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