Ahead of the Maharashtra Assembly elections, the Nationalist Congress Party (SP), led by former Union Minister Sharad Pawar, has appealed to the Election Commission of India (EC) to withdraw or remove certain symbols which it believes are “confusingly similar” to the party’s official symbol of a man playing the tutali.
The committee maintained that it was inappropriate to allot the ‘trumpet’ symbol to independent candidates, citing examples from recent Lok Sabha elections where a similar symbol had confused voters and adversely affected party performance in certain constituencies.
“Out of a total of nine seats, the party lost 4,10,385 votes to the trumpet symbol due to confusion caused by the very similar symbols. It is a matter of record that the trumpet symbol, used earlier by a random independent candidate, fetched a record high number of votes which were polled in bad faith for the first time and benefited from the goodwill of the party symbol and the mention of the name ‘Tutari’, which further confirms our concerns,” the party said in its appeal to the election body.
It further states: “It should be noted here that the confusion is not just due to the visual similarity in terms of the instruments played by the performers but also due to name references. Even the ‘trumpet’ symbol is called ‘Tuttari’ as per the official Marathi translation by the Maharashtra State Election Commission, which is a direct overlap with the name reference of the party symbol.”Tutali Puknewala ManusThe party alleged that the proxy independent candidates were therefore maliciously using the name duplication to create confusion among voters.
This is a premium article available only to our subscribers. To read over 250 premium articles every month,
You’ve reached your limit for free articles. Support quality journalism.
You’ve reached your limit for free articles. Support quality journalism.
You have read {{data.cm.views}} from {{data.cm.maxViews}} Free articles.
This is the last free article.
