RLD struggles to save its symbol in UP civic polls

LUCKNOW After the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Monday withdrew from it the status of a regional party, the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) is now fighting to save and maintain its symbol in the urban local body (ULB) polls in Uttar Pradesh, people aware of the development said.

RLD president and Member of Parliament (MP) Jayant Chaudhary has written to the State Election Commission (SEC), requesting it to reserve the party symbol - ‘handpump’ - for the RLD candidates in the civic polls. But the commission is yet to take a call on the request.

Civic polls in the state will be held in two phases - on May 4 and May 11 - and the counting will be held on May 13. The nominations for the first phase began on Tuesday.

The RLD that entered into an alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP) before the Vidhan Sabha elections, has nine MLAs in the UP Vidhan Sabha, one of them having been elected in the by-election in December last year.

“Please reserve the RLD’s election symbol – ‘handpump’ for only the RLD candidates on all seats in the urban local body polls going to be held in UP,” Jayant said in a representation addressed to the SEC on Tuesday.

RLD spokesman Anil Dubey said the party had formally made its case in the state election commission on Tuesday, urging it to act as desired by the party chief Jayant Chaudhary.

“We hope the SEC will maintain status quo with regard to the party’s status, more so when poll notification has already been issued,” he said.

A state election commission official SK Singh said the commission would consider the RLD’s representation and a take a decision on merit. “We will decide on RLD’s petition, seeking reservation of its symbol for its candidates in the civil polls, only after examining the issue,” he said.

Singh, however, said the SEC was not bound by the rules and regulations of the Election Commission of India. “The two are different bodies with different sets of rules and the ECI’s decision to derecognize the RLD as a state-level party does not necessarily apply to it in the civil polls,” he pointed out.

The ECI on Monday granted the status of a national party to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) while withdrawing the same for the Trinamool Congress, the Communist Party of India and the Nationalist Congress Party. The commission also withdrew the state/regional party status from the RLD in UP for its failure to get the required 6% of the total votes polled in the state assembly elections in the state. Despite winning eight seats in 2022 assembly polls in UP, the RLD’s vote share was less than 3%.

The commission may examine the RLD’s vote share in the previous civil polls in the state to arrive at a conclusion.