The Election Commission of India has asked the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) to submit a revised design of the party symbol — car in the wake of complaints by TRS that the symbol did not appear boldly on ballot paper and that it closely resembled `truck’, the symbol of Samajwadi Forward Bloc.
The TRS president and Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had personally met the Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora in New Delhi on December 27 seeking deletion of the truck and electric iron, allotted to an independent, in the coming Parliament elections. He informed Mr. Arora that the TRS suffered electoral losses in some constituencies in the recent Assembly elections because of symbol confusion. He also discussed about brightening the colour of the party symbol for easy recognition by voters. On receipt of EC’s response to Mr. Rao’s request, the Deputy Leader of TRS in Lok Sabha B. Vinod Kumar on Friday forwarded to the CEC redesigned car symbol which is darker in shade so that the symbol is clearly visible to voters.
Truck symbol
Mr. Vinod Kumar highlighted that the Samajwadi Forward Bloc indulged in fraudulent practices in the Assembly elections not only with the help of truck symbol but deliberately giving tickets to its candidates with similar or even same names as their TRS rivals to confuse voters. The party may play the same havoc in Parliament elections.
The TRS had complained to EC about allotment of truck symbol to Samajwadi Forward Bloc even before Assembly elections. The EC had, however, expressed helplessness as the election process was set in motion. Within a week of declaration of election results, the TRS had identified to the EC 15 constituencies where Samajwadi Forward Bloc candidates polled a minimum of 5,400 and maximum of 13,600 votes. The TRS lost polls in three of these constituencies.
