HYDERABAD: The ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) on Thursday took strong exception to the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) decision to remove Munugode returning officer Jagannadha Rao and replacing him with Rohit Singh in connection with the 'road roller' symbol controversy.
TRS working president K.T. Rama Rao said in a statement that the EC's decision was yet another example of how the BJP-led government at the Centre was misusing constitutional bodies for political gain and to target political opponents.
Rama Rao claimed that the removal of RO demonstrated the BJP's pressure on the Election Commission, which was supposed to uphold the spirit of democracy without bias. He claimed that reinstating the road roller symbol, which had been suspended since 2011, was a mockery of the spirit of democracy.
"Based on TRS request in 2011, the EC has removed the road roller symbol from the list of free symbols for allotment to registered unrecognised parties and Independent candidates as it resembles TRS car symbol and confusing voters. But the same road roller symbol has been reinstated for upcoming Munugode bypolls which is against the spirit of the election,” he opined.
Rama Rao accused the BJP of attempting to gain mileage in the byelections by confusing voters with symbols that resemble the TRS' car symbol. "This violates the constitutional spirit of free and fair elections," he said, while urging the people to be aware that the BJP was abusing constitutional institutions for political gain.
"TRS strongly condemns the decision taken by the Election Commission on transfer of the returning officer who worked as per the rules. The Election Commission is working under BJP's national leadership. BJP is resorting to such wrongdoings after realising that its defeat is imminent in the bypoll."
The TRS leadership is worried about the EC's decision to reinstate the road roller symbol in the Munugode bypoll because candidates with road roller symbols secured considerable votes in previous elections, and the party believes that voters confused road roller with car and cast their votes for road roller instead of car.
The TRS has already written to EC requesting it to remove eight car look-alike symbols such as camera, chapati roller, doli, road roller, soap dish, television, sewing machine and ship from the list of 'free symbols' in Munugode bypoll.
However, the EC rejected its request and allotted four symbols, chapati roller, ship, television and camera on October 17 to Independents. With the reallotment of road roller symbol to Yuga Thulasi Party on Thursday, the 'identical symbols' went up to five.
