Hyderabad: The Election Commission has agreed to consider TRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s request to modify the party’s poll symbol of “car”.
Mr Rao had told the EC soon after the Assembly elections that the party’s symbol was not clearly visible on EVMs and voters were confusing it with other symbols, like the truck and the iron box.
On December 27, Mr Rao and party MPs met Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora in New Delhi and requested him not to allocate poll symbols which can be confused with his party’s car symbol during the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Mr Rao told the CEC that his party had to suffer in some constituencies in the recent polls because of the symbol.
TRS MP B. Vinod Kumar said the party chief also discussed about brightening the colour of the party symbol so that voters can easily recognise it.
He said that in a representation made to the Election Commission, Mr Rao had told them how voters in Telengana State were getting confused with party symbols, especially truck, iron and camera, which closely resemble the TRS symbol and requested not to allow such symbols in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
He said the truck symbol was allotted to All India Forward Bloc and they deliberately gave tickets to candidates with similar names or even same names as the TRS candidate to confuse voters.
B. Vinod Kumar said that responding to the representation, the election commission on Thursday asked the party to submit a modified symbol design for its examination. This was submitted on Friday. He said the EC said it will consider the party’s request.
