Bharat Rashtra Samithi likely to approach Supreme Court seeking removal of car-like symbols in elections

Oct 12, 2023

Hyderabad (Telangana) [India], October 12 : Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), may move the Supreme Court in relation to the removal of car-like symbols from the Election Commission's free symbols, confirmed its legal team.
On Thursday, the Delhi High Court while refusing to entertain the matter suggested the lawyer to approach the Supreme Court or Telangana High Court in this regard.
The BRS had earlier approached the Delhi High Court and sought the removal of car-like symbols from the Election Commission's free symbols.
Earlier during the day, Ravula Sridhar, speaking on BRS's approach said that we have made the request because the party has lost votes in certain instances due to car-like symbols in the EVMs.
"We have approached the Delhi High Court to consider our request to direct the Election Commission (EC) to not include the symbols, which are similar, and resemble the BRS Party Symbol-Car because when you go to EVMs certain symbols like road roller, chapatti maker and camera appear similar to car and at times our party members have lost votes," said Sridhar.
"In 2011, the EC removed that (similar symbols) for once but later they included that (similar symbols) despite our repeated request to not include symbols that are similar to car and this time also, the EC has again included these symbols in the list so we have approached the Delhi HC to consider our request and direct the EC to remove these symbols from the list of total symbols that are available," he added.
Sridhar further said, "I am sure that, seeing our past experiences, the Delhi HC will consider our request."
Explaining his party's view regarding the whole matter, the BRS leader said that the people who want to vote BRS party and car symbol but due to their problem in identifying the right symbol might vote for a different symbol that is similar to the car symbol so the exact mandate might not come out.
Elections will be held in Telangana on November 30.
The counting of votes will take place on December 3 for all five states- Mizoram on November 7, Chhattisgarh on November 7 and November 17, Madhya Pradesh on November 17, Rajasthan on November 25.
Telangana is set to witness a triangular contest between the BJP, the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi and the Congress in the upcoming assembly election.
In the previous Assembly election held in 2018, BRS managed to win 88 seats out of 119 and had a dominant vote share of 47.4 per cent. Congress came at a distant second with 19 seats. Its vote share was 28.7 per cent