The Election Commission on Tuesday said it has accepted the request of the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) to prominently display its election symbol ‘man blowing trumpet’ on the ballot units of the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM). Had requested, but the demand to ban this election symbol has been rejected.
Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said the NCP (SP) has informed election officials that its election symbol ‘man blowing trumpet’ was not prominently displayed on the ballot units of the EVMs.
Kumar said, ‘We had asked them to clarify how they want to display their election symbol on the ballot unit. NCP (SP) had given us three options regarding the election symbol and we accepted the first suggestion given by them.
However, the Chief Election Commissioner clarified that the Commission does not want to make any changes in the existing system of allotment of election symbols. He also rejected the request to remove the trumpet symbol from the list of election symbols.
Kumar said the trumpet election symbol is different from the ‘man blowing trumpet’ symbol. The Sharad Pawar-led party had argued that the Trumpet election symbol was similar to a ‘man blowing a trumpet’, leading to confusion among voters during the Lok Sabha elections.
The NCP (SP) had said that the independent candidate who was allotted the trumpet election symbol in Satara constituency had received more votes than the victory margin of BJP candidate Udayanraje Bhosle.
Bhosale defeated NCP (SP) candidate Shashikant Shinde by 32,771 votes. Independent candidate Sanjay Gade, who contested the election on trumpet symbol, got 37,062 votes.
When are the elections in Maharashtra?
Voting for all 288 assembly seats in Maharashtra will be held in a single phase on November 20 and counting of votes will take place on November 23. Rajiv Kumar announced the schedule of Maharashtra Rajya Sabha assembly elections in a press conference here on Tuesday. He said that assembly elections will be held in Maharashtra in one phase.
