ECI orders freezing of allotment of Glass Tumbler symbol to others

Vijayawada: The Election Commission has ordered freeze of the Jana Sena party symbol ‘Glass Tumbler’ to Independents and to contestants from the registered unrecognised political parties in certain Lok Sabha and Assembly constituencies.

It directed returning officers to revise the allotment of symbols to the contestants accordingly.

The EC stated that in the Lok Sabha constituencies where the Jana Sena is contesting, there will be no allotment of Glass Tumbler symbol to the candidates in the Assembly constituencies falling under such jurisdiction.

Similarly, in Assembly constituencies where the Jana Sena is contesting, there will be no allotment of Glass Tumbler symbol to other candidates in the fray in Lok Sabha constituencies linked to such Assembly constituencies. This is to avoid public confusion over the JS symbol.

The order came in the backdrop of Jana Sena representations to EC to reserve the Glass Tumbler symbol and remove it from the list of free symbols so that the same symbol would not be allotted to any other candidate.

The party even moved the High Court citing difficulties and hardships due to the confusion being created due to the common symbol ‘Glass Tumbler’ being allotted to other unrecognised political parties and independent candidates in the constituencies where the party did not field its candidates.

Jana Sena is an unrecognised political party and when it got registered with the ECI, it was allotted the common symbol of Glass Tumbler for the AP polls.

As Jana Sena, in alliance with Telugu Desam and BJP, is contesting the polls, the three parties shared the 175 Assembly and 25 Lok Sabha seats among themselves for the contests. Accordingly, the JS share is 21 Assembly and two Lok Sabha constituencies.

They are: Anakapalli, Pendurthi and Elamanchali that fall under Anakapalli Lok Sabha segment; Palakonda that falls under Araku LS; Nellimarla that falls under Vizianagaram LS; Visakhapatnam South that falls under Visakhapatnam LS; Razole and P Gannavaram that fall under Amalapuram LS: Polavaram and Ungutur that fall under Eluru LS; Pitapuram from where the JS chief Pawan Kalyan is contesting and Kakinada Rural that fall under Kakinada LS; Narasapuram, Bhimavaram and Tadepalligudem that fall under Narasapuram LS; Rajanagaram and Nidadavole that fall under Rajahmundry LS; Avanigadda that falls under Vijayawada LS; Tenali that falls under Guntur LS; Tirupati that falls under Tirupati LS and Kodur that falls under Rajampet LS. The two Lok Sabha segments are Kakinada and Machilipatnam. Each LS constituency comprises seven Assembly segments.

As per norm, the Glass Tumbler will not be allotted to others in 13 Lok Sabha segments.

Kakinada LS has seven Assembly segments including Kakinada City, Pitapuram, Jaggampeta, Peddapuram, Kakinada Rural, Prathipadu and Tuni. Machilipatnam LS also has seven segments-Gudivada, Penamaluru, Machilipatnam, Avanigadda, Pedana, Gannavaram and Pamarru.

As per norm, there will be no allotment of Glass Tumbler in 14 Assembly segments where JS is contesting - two Lok Sabha segments - to others.

Following this order, the returning officers concerned started calling the independents and others from registered unrecognised political parties who got allotment of Glass Tumbler as a common symbol, to ignore the assignment and now wait for allotment of another symbol.

The RO from Visakhapatnam LS called contestant G. Rajesh from Navataram party as he got allotment of Glass Tumbler symbol earlier and said this would be changed to ‘Mike’. The Rajahmundry Lok Sabha seat contestant Meda Srinivas from Rashtriya Praja Congress who got his Glass Tumbler symbol will have this changed to ‘gas cylinder’.

Similar is the situation happening all over the state where several independent contestants or others who got allotment of Glass Tumbler symbol are getting their symbol withdrawn and new symbol is being allotted to them as per norms of ECI.