'People intelligent enough to differentiate between car & road roller’: SC junks plea of BRS on party symbol

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to consider a plea by Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) seeking direction to Election Commission not to grant car-like symbols from its free symbols in the Assembly election scheduled in Telangana.

The party claimed election symbols like road roller, should not be granted to any candidate "as it would create confusion with its symbol of car".

A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Pankaj Mithal said that Indian voters are intelligent enough to differentiate between a car and a road roller. 

After hearing submissions, the bench declined to entertain the plea.

BRS’s plea, filed through advocate Vinod Kumar Tiwari, said, "The EC, in allotting the symbols, which are deceptively similar and lookalike of ‘car’, i.e the symbol of the petitioner's political party, to Yuga Thulasi Party and Alliance of Democratic Reforms Party and rejecting the representations made by the petitioner is biased, arbitrary, discriminatory, in violation of the principles of natural justice and also in violation of the fundamental rights of the candidates nominated by the petitioner."

It claimed the EC's move would cause serious prejudice to the political party which is contrary to the rule of law, warranting interference of this court.

The plea contended that BRS has been allotted the election symbol of 'car' for more than two decades which is in continuous operation by it in all elections.

It claimed that there has been a "deceitful" attempt in allotting the road roller symbol to Yuga Thulasi Party and the Chapati roller symbol to Alliance of Democratic Reforms Party. 

The plea emphasised that these symbols are deceptively similar and look like symbols of 'car' by which the "rights of the candidates nominated by the petitioner are taken away resulting them to suffer irreparable loss and injury".

The plea said symbols similar to a 'car' will confuse voters in choosing and recognising the symbol of 'car’ on the EVM machines as the size of the symbol would be smaller than the size of a postal stamp when it is found on the EVM machine. 

“The fundamental rights of the voters of the State of Telangana are hijacked by the unscrupulous political parties to gain undue advantage through fraudulent means by setting up independent candidates choosing deceptively similar and look alike symbols of ‘car’," the plea said.

It claimed that an attempt was being made to cut down the vote share of the candidates nominated by BRS by "confusing the common people and divert the vote share to the random candidates, enabling the rival political parties to win the election".