TRS loses HC fight for changing car-like election symbols

HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court on Tuesday dismissed the petition filed by the TRS seeking the deletion of an identical symbol from the electronic voting machines (EVMs) for the upcoming Munugode by-poll.

TRS general secretary Soma Bharat Kumar approached the High Court on Monday, seeking a hearing on an urgent basis, complaining that the Election Commission had not taken any action on their representation to delete the car-like symbol that was free of any affiliation from the voting process.

However, the division bench of Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice C.V. Bhaskar Reddy dismissed the plea, after the ECI informed the court that the party’s representation was rejected as it was made after the election process had been initiated, on October 17. The court said it was not inclined to interfere in the matter.

Avinash Desai, the counsel for the ECI, submitted to the court that a ‘road-roller’ symbol was not allotted to any candidate for the poll, while the ECI deleted the ‘truck’ symbol from the free symbols list in the past. But, the TRS made the representation late, he said.

“Once the notification is issued, the process for elections commence, and seeking deletion of certain election symbols from the list is in violation of Article 329 (4) b of the Constitution of India,” Desai submitted.

Sri Raghuram, senior counsel for the TRS, contended that it was the statutory duty of the ECI to act on the representation as it’s the right of the political party to have an election symbol, which is a tool for voters to exercise their franchise. He contended that not deleting similar symbols may impact the result of the election, as eight symbols allotted to independent candidates — camera, chapati roller, dolly, road roller, soap dish, television, sewing machine and ship — were similar to the TRS’ ‘car’ symbol.

He also cited an instance from Andhra Pradesh, wherein TDP lost a parliamentary constituency by nine votes, with an independent candidate — who had a motorcycle logo, similar to TDP’s cycle — secured over 20,000 votes.

Chief Justice Bhuyan, however, dismissed the pleas and observed that except for the chapati roller, all other symbols were different from a car.

The court observed that the ECI rightly applied its rule in rejecting the representation. Further, it also rejected a plea by the BJP to implead in the petition filed by TRS.