New Delhi: The Supreme Court Friday declined to entertain a plea by Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) seeking direction to the Election Commission of India not to grant car-like symbols from its free symbols in the assembly election scheduled in Telangana.
The political party’s counsel contended before a bench comprising justices Abhay S. Oka and Pankaj Mithal that election symbols like road roller should not be granted to any candidate as it would create confusion with its symbol of car.
The bench said Indian voters are intelligent enough to differentiate between a car and a road roller. After hearing submissions, the bench declined to entertain the plea.
BRS’s plea, filed through advocate Vinod Kumar Tiwari, said: “The action of the Respondent No. I (Election Commission of India) in allotting the symbols which are deceptively similar and look-alike of ‘car’, i.e the symbol of the petitioner's political party to the Respondents No.2 (Yuga Thulasi Party) and 3 (Alliance of Democratic Reforms Party) and rejecting the representations made by the petitioner is biased, arbitrary, discriminatory, in violation of the principles of natural justice and also in violation of the fundamental rights of the candidates nominated by the Petitioner thereby causing serious prejudice to the Petitioner's political party which is contrary to the rule of law warranting interference of this Hon'ble Court”.
The plea contended that BRS has been allotted the election symbol of "car" for more than two decades which is in continuous operation by it in all elections and the Respondent No.1 has made a deceitful attempt in allotting the road roller symbol to "Yuga Thulasi Party" and the Chapati roller symbol to "Alliance of Democratic Reforms Party". The plea emphasized that these symbols are deceptively similar and look like symbols of a "car" by which the rights of the candidates nominated by the petitioner are taken away resulting in their suffering of irreparable loss and injury.
The plea said symbols similar to a car will confuse voters in choosing and recognizing the symbol of 'car’ on the EVM machines as the size of the symbol would be lesser than the size of a postal stamp when it is found on the EVM machine. “The fundamental rights of the voters of the State of Telangana are hijacked by the unscrupulous political parties to gain undue advantage through fraudulent means by setting up independent candidates choosing deceptively similar and look alike symbols of ‘car’”, said the plea.
It stressed that it is an attempt to cut down the vote share of the candidates nominated by BRS in order to confuse the common people and divert the vote share to the random candidates enabling the rival political parties to win the election.
