Fear of car look-alike symbols stalks TRS netas

Hyderabad: Election symbols resembling car are haunting the TRS leaders as the party now wants the Election Commission to remove eight such identical symbols, including road roller, camera, chapati roller, television, ship, doli , from the list of free symbols from the ensuing by-poll and all elections in future.

The TRS leaders have been raising the issue of identical symbols and the impact on the winning prospects of their candidates in successive elections in the State. The party leaders said at times the identical symbols belonging to independents are more than the votes secured by recognised parties.

Giving examples, they said in 2018 Assembly elections, in Zaheerabad Assembly the Road Roller symbol got 4,330 votes, compared to 1,036 votes polled by CPM. Similarly, the Camera symbol in Narsampet got 9,052, whereas the two national parties BJP and BSP collectively got just 2,612 votes.

The leaders alleged that the Opposition parties have taken advantage of identical symbols, which are available in the list of free symbols to confuse voters in choosing and recognising TRS symbol car on EVM machines. "It can be clearly understood how these so-called independent candidates are cutting into TRS votes and damaging the prospects of the party candidates in elections".

"This way, thousands of votes of TRS are diverted to these so-called independent candidates, who are, obviously, motivated by our politically opposing parties. This kind of getting votes by the so-called independents is totally abnormal and clearly establishes that they have been successful in confusing voters of TRS" said MLA D Vinay Bhaskar.

It may be mentioned here that on the representations from the party earlier the EC had removed some identical symbols from the list of free symbols including Hat, Iron Box, Truck and Auto Rickshaw. The party leaders claimed that some more identical symbols also have the potential in confusing voters of TRS and get diverted to votes of 'so-called independents'.

The leaders told the EC that they would be approaching courts if there is no response from the EC within 48 hours. They have also complained against BJP Telangana chief Bandi Sanjay Kumar for his comments against Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao on tantrik puja.