THIRUVANANTHAPURAM : The BJP will move the High Court seeking a rearrangement of candidates listing on the EVM for the Thiruvananthapuram municipal corporation election. The party’s decision is in the wake of the State Election Commission’s award of rose flower symbol to 12 independent candidates who are namesakes of BJP candidates.
The party is worried that its candidates might lose their votes to the namesakes as the names and symbols are similar. BJP district president V V Rajesh, also a candidate from the Poojapura ward, said the granting of rose flower to namesake candidates was part of a larger conspiracy hatched by CPM leaders and some officers.
“We expect a favourable decision from the High Court. We want the SEC to drop its listing of candidates in alphabetical order and adopt the Central Election Commission’s rule. As per the CEC rule, candidates of national parties, state parties and independents are listed in that order,” he said.
Rajesh said the party would also campaign against the CPM’s attempt to win by cheating the voters. “All these independent candidates were carefully chosen by the CPM as their names would be listed just above the name of the BJP candidate. Of course, people like the aged are likely to fall in their trap. We will counter this at any cost,” he said.
BJP candidates who face the “rose challenge” include party’s state council member Pongummoodu Vikraman, who is contesting from the Edavacode ward, former Attukal councillor R C Beena, now contesting from Ambalathara, and Yuva Morcha district vice-president Ashanath, who is the Pappanamcode ward candidate.
Allotted symbols cannot be changed now: SEC
T’Puram: Election symbols already allotted to candidates for the local body polls cannot be changed at this juncture, the State Election Commission has clarified. There will also be no change in the practice of arranging names of candidates in the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) in alphabetical order, the poll panel clarified. The clarification came in the wake of BJP recently alleging that rivals were fielding a few independent candidates with the names similar to BJP candidates.
Many of these independent candidates were allotted the ‘rose’ symbol, which looked similar to the BJP’s ‘lotus’ symbol. The BJP leaders claimed this would lead to votes meant for the party going to namesake candidates with similar-looking symbols. The State Election Commission said that complaints regarding certain election symbols were received only after the formal list of symbols was published on November 23. Changing the symbols after that is not practicable, it said. Arranging of candidates’ names in the EVM is being done as per the Kerala Panchayat Raj and Kerala Municipality Act.