Acting on the Nationalist Congress Party (SP)’s demands ahead of the Assembly elections in the state, the Maharashtra State Election Commission (SEC) has frozen the trumpet and ‘turha’ (a traditional trumpet) poll symbols from its list of free symbols.
The decision was taken on Tuesday and made public on Friday.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) had granted the ‘man blowing trumpet’ symbol to the NCP (SP). However, in the recently held Lok Sabha elections, Independent candidates were given the trumpet and ‘turha’ poll symbols which reportedly led to confusion in the minds of voters. As a result, in several constituencies, NCP (SP) votes allegedly went to the Independent candidates.
In the Satara Lok Sabha constituency, for example, the Independent candidate won over 37,000 votes while the winning margin of the BJP candidate was around 32,000 votes. Similarly, in the Dindori Lok Sabha seat, the Independent candidate won over 1 lakh votes. Despite this, the NCP-SP candidate won by a margin of more than 1 lakh votes.
A similar problem was reportedly seen in all seats contested by the NCP (SP).
Based on its Lok Sabha experience, while preparing for the Assembly elections, the NCP (SP) had demanded that these two symbols be frozen.
