Hyderabad: Lookalikes of the BRS’ poll symbol, a car, are turning out to be a major concern for the ruling party as it contemplates its next legal move to seek a resolution to the issue.
On Wednesday, it approached the Delhi High Court, seeking directions to the Election Commission of India (ECI) for the removal of similar symbols. However, the Delhi court pointed out that a similar plea was filed in the Telangana High Court, following which the BRS withdrew its petition.
Sources said that the BRS, more than once, approached the ECI earlier on this issue, and during the ECI’s recent visit to the state too, it took the matter to the notice of the ECI, but to no avail.
The BRS is claiming that symbols of a camera, chapati roller, doli, soap dish, television and sewing machine could be mistaken for its car symbol.
Earlier, the BRS was successful in having the symbols of ironing box, truck and autorickshaw removed from the list of free symbols that could be allotted either to parties or individuals for contesting polls.
The road-roller symbol, although removed from the symbols list a few years ago, was recently allotted by the ECI to the Yuga Tulasi Party, sparking a fresh round of concern in the BRS that people would mistake it for BRS’ symbol.
The party contends that in the past elections, thousands of votes got ‘diverted’ in this manner from BRS to others. In its representation to the ECI recently, the BRS said some independent candidates, who were “motivated” to join the poll fray by other larger parties got abnormal numbers of votes, indicating that this was a deliberate strategy by such parties to cut into BRS’ votes.
