My elephant vs your elephant, my cycle vs yours

Starting with the BSP. The party was first allotted the elephant as a symbol by the EC in 1992, when it had just managed to get recognition as a state party. There were other states, like Assam, Sikkim and Pondicherry, with other parties with the same symbol. But the EC, like others, perhaps underestimated Mayawati’s reach, and never thought there would be a conflict of symbols.

Says a BSP functionary: ‘‘When we were officially allotted the symbol, the EC allowed us to use it everywhere except Assam and Sikkim. The PMK couldn’t use the same elephant symbol when we used it in Pondicherry.’’

Within four years, the BSP had grown into a national party. ‘‘Now, there is a problem,’’ admits an EC official. ‘‘The BSP is putting up candidates everywhere in the country and litigations are piling up.’’At least in this fight, Mayawati is joined by arch-foe Mulayam Singh Yadav. His Samajwadi Party was caught in a bitter fight with the Panthers’ Party in the recent Delhi elections over the cycle. ‘‘It actually created a lot of confusion. While the SP had put up 23 candidates, Panthers had six and in some places they clashed,’’ sources in the EC say.

But Panthers is a small puddle compared to what Mulayam may run into if he pedals south. Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) also has cycle as a symbol.

Bal Thackeray is caught in the same mess. He may browbeat many into submission with his barbs, but he could do nothing about the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha that shared the bow-and-arrow symbol with the Shiv Sena in the recent Madhya Pradesh elections. The Sena touted its Maratha pride, but Shibu Soren’s JMM refused to give up its tribal culture.

Thankfully for the EC, the fight remained literally symbolic, as both the parties are virtually non-existent in the state.