In what is being perceived by the affected political party as a blessing in disguise, Palghar District Collector and the constituency’s Returning Officer on Saturday cancelled the “Whistle” election symbol of Bahujan Vikas Aghadi (BVA) — a constituent of the United Progressive Alliance — and allotted a new one, ‘Autorickshaw’.
On its part, the aggrieved BVA — which has been contesting the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls since 1999 on “Whistle” symbol — has chosen not to contest the “last minute” decision by the Palghar district administration to allot ‘Autorickshaw’ instead of “Whistle” symbol as it feels that the changed poll symbol would work in its favour.
Alleging that the Palghar district collector had denied BVA its regular “Whistle” symbol under “political pressure”, the party’s organising secretary Ajiv Patil said: “We have been contesting elections on whistle symbol since 1999. Under pressure from the ruling Shiv Sena-BJP leaders, the district collector denied us our regular whistle symbol. But we are not going to challenge the new symbol allotted to us”.
According to Patil, the decision to allot BVA “autorickshaw” was taken by the district collector at 00.35 am on Saturday. “We are not at all worried about the election authorities’ decision to allot us autorickshaw symbol in place 0f Whistle. There are about 35,000 autorickshaws in Palghar. The people identify with our symbol in our day to day lives. We can reach poll symbol to nook and corner of the constituency more effectively than a whistle”.
“The voters identify themselves more with authorishaw as a symbol than with the whistle — sound of which we would not have reached to people across the constituency.
The “whistle” symbol allotted to BVA belonged originally to Bahujan Maha Party, the Sena-BJP allegedly resorted to manipulation and interference — but now the new ‘autorickshaw’ symbol has backfired on their mischievous plans. Hitendra Thakur —founded BVA— had earlier fought elections on the Congress’ ‘hand’, ‘spectacle’, then the ‘whistle’.
In the first-ever election held after the delimitation, BVA’s Baliram Jadhav had the Palghar Lok Sabha seat by 12359 votes against BJP’s Chintaman Vanaga in the 2009 elections . The BVA candidate had polled 30.47 per cent votes as against 28.78 per cent votes security by the BJP nominee.
The BJP’s Chintaman Vanaga had trounced Jadhav by massive margin of 2,39,620 votes in the 2014 polls. However, in the Palghar Lok Sabha by-polls held in May last year following the untimely death of its sitting MP Chintaman Vanga in January last year, BJP’s Rajendra Gavit bagged this seat, defeating late Vanaga’s son Srinivas Chintaman Vanaga by a margin of 29,572 votes.
Gavit — who is contesting as a Shiv Sena candidate — is taking on BVA’s former MP Baliram Jadhav in the current elections. There are a total of 12 candidates including five independents in the Palghar Lok Sabha poll fray. Palghar is going to polls on April 29.
