Alarming notes from 4 of 10 seats: Why NCP (SP) wants solo rights to trumpet
The Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar), which won eight of the 10 Lok Sabha seats it contested in the recent elections, believes it could have performed better but for the fact that the “tutari" (trumpet) – similar to its poll symbol – is part of the Election Commission’s (EC) list of free symbols, to be allotted to Independents or unregistered political parties.
The NCP (SP) has now approached the EC to take the tutari off its list of free symbols, particularly ahead of the Assembly elections later this year.
The NCP (SP) was allotted the “tutari vajavnaara maanus (man blowing the trumpet)” symbol after the EC recognised the Ajit Pawar-led faction as the real NCP and assigned it both the party name and original symbol of a clock.
“The confusion among voters was evident from the number of votes that Independent candidates with the tutari symbol, similar to our symbol, got,” party general secretary Jaidev Gaikwad said. Pointing out that the NCP (SP) had told the EC before the polls too to not allot the tutari symbol to others, he added: “We lost one seat due to the confusion over the symbol but it had a ripple effect in other constituencies as well. Fortunately, our candidates got a huge number of votes and the final outcome was not affected.”
The party is also apprehensive that the symbol confusion – if it persists – will hurt its chances even more in the coming Assembly elections with the number of voters per constituency smaller. “If the EC does not yield to our demand, we will approach the Supreme Court,” Gaikwad said.
The Lok Sabha constituencies where the “tutari” made some noise
Satara: An Independent candidate allotted the “tutari” symbol, Sanjay Gade, a first-time candidate, bagged 37,062 votes in this constituency. The NCP (SP) candidate, Shashikant Shinde, ended up losing by 31,771 votes to BJP’s Udayanraje Bhonsle.
Dindori: The Independent candidate here with the “tutari” symbol polled as many as 1.03 lakh votes. Babu Bhagre, a relatively unknown face, managed to pocket a sizable chunk of votes as he was a namesake of the NCP (SP) candidate Bhaskar Bhagare, who won easily here, winning by around 1.13 lakh votes.
Beed: Here, the NCP (SP)’s Bajrang Sonawane barely scraped through against high-profile BJP candidate Pankaja Munde. Sonawane’s narrow 6,553-vote win followed 54,850 votes to Bahujan Maha Party candidate Ashok Thorat, a first-time candidate, who contested on the trumpet symbol.
Baramati: Despite the high-stakes battle here, with NCP (SP) patriarch Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule herself in the race, the Independent candidate, Mahesh Sitaram Bhagat with the trumpet symbol bagged over 14,000 votes. Sule eventually had an easy win over Sunetra Pawar, the wife of NCP leader Ajit Pawar, by over 1.5 lakh votes.
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