2024 General elections | Know the legacy of party symbols

While in Vijayawada’s Kristurajupuram, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) workers raise a bicycle up in the air, elsewhere in Western Uttar Pradesh’s Nagina, supporters of Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) carry large kettles on their heads. Election symbols and their creative use have always been a key feature to look out for as India’s election season heats up.

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Since the very first elections in 1951, when at least 53 parties contested for about 4,500 seats (including Lok Sabha and State Assembly seats), the Election Commission has allotted symbols to parties under which a candidate can contest the election. This process became more streamlined with The Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968 that stipulates the allotment of symbols to parties at a national and State level, as well as to independent candidates. It also has rules that can be applied in case of a merger of two or more parties, or a split in a party.

Such mergers, splits, breakaways have not only given the voters new symbols for this elections, but have dictated how even the most recognisable symbols — Congress’ hand or BJP’s lotus — came about to be.

Read more on: Elections that shaped India

Here’s a quick roundup of how some of the parties in this country ended up with their current symbols.

Congress | A long, splintered journey to the ‘Hand’

In an early recording, Mohammed Rafi opens a simple Hindi song with a simple jingle “Congress ko vote dein, Congress ko vote dein” (Give your vote to Congress). The campaign song, which charts Congress’ role in the freedom struggle, points the voters to the party’s first election symbol — a pair of yoked bulls. “Do bailon ki jodi wala, Congress ka amit nishaan, jis ke peeche bhara pada azaadi ka itihass mahan,” (Congress’ symbol of a pair of bulls, that carries the glorious history India’s freedom with it), Rafi reminds the voters in this song. The pair of bullocks, a representation of the agrarian economy that Jawaharlal Nehru had been handed the command of, would inspire his daughter Indira Gandhi when she set up her own rival faction in 1969.

(Hear the song by Mohammed Rafi below. Credit: Internet Archive)

After being expelled from the party in 1969 by then Congress president S. Nijalingappa, Indira Gandhi formed the Indian National Congress (Requisitionists). As dispute over the symbol (yoked pair of bullocks) arose, Indira Gandhi’s faction was allotted the symbol of a ‘cow nursing her calf’. As the Indira Gandhi faction contested elections under this new symbol, its rival faction and other Opposition parties raised objection claiming that the image of cow was being used to appeal to the Hindu religious sentiments. Dismissing a petition in 1972, the Gujarat High Court, however, held that “a pictoral representation of a cow or a calf did not symbolise the religion.” The issue of the symbol’s religious connotations was also raised in the case before the Supreme Court in 1975 (Smt. Indira Gandhi vs. Shri Raj Narain), in which Narain alleged that Indira had “made extensive appeals to the religious symbol of cow and calf.”

Post-Emergency, as Indira Gandhi sought to regain electoral power in the ensuing elections, after facing defeat at the hands of the Janata Party led by Morarji Desai. Declaring the party under her command as the “real Congress”, Indira Gandhi announced the formation of Congress (Indira). With her ‘calf and cow’ symbol frozen following a 1979 split, Indira Gandhi was on the lookout for a new symbol, and was given the choice between several symbols by Election Commission, one of which was the hand. As per the party’s claims, it was the story of the Kaipathy temple or hand temple at Kallekulangara that inspired Indira Gandhi to settle on the ‘Hand’ symbol.

Bharatiya Janata Party | A bid for nationalism

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is currently leading the alliance at the Centre and is eyeing a third term, also has relatively recent associations with its symbol – the Lotus. Around the same time that Congress zeroed in on the ‘Hand’, Atal Bihari Vajpayee at a rally in Bombay in 1980 made the following prediction, “Andhera chhatega, sooraj niklega, kamal khilega” (The darkness will give way to light, the sun will come up, and the lotus will bloom). He was of course referring to the formation of the Bharatiya Janata Party on April 6, 1980. Vajpayee’s choice of the lotus matched the new party’s nationalist ideologies.

The BJP, in 1980, was a revamped version of the Jana Sangh, whose members had merged with the Janata Party in 1977 to form the then central government. For the time that Jana Sangh, that was formed in 1951, existed independently, its election symbol which was the ‘Deepak’ (lamp) had embodied Vajpayee’s words about driving away the darkness.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) | Borrowing from a legacy

Borrowing its election symbol from one of the early cradles of communism – Soviet Russia – the Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s universally recognisable hammer, sickle and the five-pointed star was put into use after 1964. A split in the Communist Party of India gave birth to the CPI(M) faction. Also known earlier as the CPI (Left), indicating its ideological distinction from the CPI, the party was granted recognition in 1964 after it polled the required number of seats in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and West Bengal Assembly elections.

Meanwhile, the Communist Party of India remains possibly the only party to continue using the same original election symbol since the first General elections of 1951. The ‘sickle with ears of corn’, along with other symbols of that time, sought to represent the large agrarian electorate.

Bahujan Samaj Party | Bringing back Ambedkar

Four years after its inception in 1984, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) managed to make its mark in the 1988 Allahabad bye-elections. Contesting against future Prime Minister V.P. Singh, and Congress’ Sunil Shastri, BSP’s founder Kanshi Ram stood third, snatching nearly 18% of the votes. His campaign back then, had introduced the voters to the now common sight of the blue flag with an elephant on it.

Holding significant importance in the Hindu as well as Buddhist religion, the ‘elephant’ symbol gained even more importance for Kanshi Ram as it had once been used by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar for his Republican Party of India.

BSP’s ‘elephant’ remains one of the few animal-based election symbols in India, as the ECI has now stopped allotting such symbols.

Aam Aadmi Party | Fresh, clean beginnings

The jhaadu (broom) of the Aam Aadmi Party, and its emergence first in the political scene is still fresh in the minds of Delhi voters. Following the 2011 India Against Corruption protests led by Anna Hazare, his right-hand man at the time Arvind Kejriwal formed the Aam Aadmi Party in 2012.

The election symbol of ‘broom’ was allotted to the party by the Election Commission in 2013, and was one of the three symbols submitted by the party, along with ‘candle’ and ‘tap’.

The party leaders were quick to elaborate on the messaging behind the ‘broom’ saying that it stood for not only the dignity of labour, but also represents the party’s hope to “clean the filth which has permeated our government and our legislature”.

National People’s Party | Push for education

One of the six national parties in India as on 2024, the National People’s Party (NPP) was formed in 2013, months after its founder former Meghalaya Chief Minister P.A. Sangma was expelled from the Nationalist Congress Party.  

Holding a book (the party’s symbol), Sangma while launching the party had said on the symbol: “Book will be the national symbol of the party because we believe that only literacy and education can empower the weaker sections.”

Seeing double | Same symbols for different parties

In case of State-level parties, India has seen different parties in different States bearing the same election symbol. As long as their candidates don’t contest against each other from the same constituency, it generally doesn’t end up posing a problem. In certain cases, the ECI stipulates in which States a specific party is not allowed to contest under its reserved symbol.  

The ‘bicycle’

Souring familial relations in two separate States over two decades apart, the bicycle has been a hotly contested symbol in Indian politics.

The most common mode of transport for the masses, the symbol was chosen by N.T. Rama Rao for his Telugu Desam Party (TDP), and by Mulayam Singh Yadav for his Samajwadi Party.

Founded in 1982, the TDP underwent a coup as Rao was displaced from his position as a Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh in 1995 by his own son-in-law N. Chandrababu Naidu. Mr. Naidu got not only the coveted position but also the TDP along with its ‘bicycle symbol.’

Nearly a decade later, internal issues in the Samajwadi Party structure created a strife between Mulayam Singh Yadav, his son and then CM of Uttar Pradesh Akhilesh Yadav, and Mulayam’s brother Shivpal Yadav. After staking claim to the party and its symbol, both were granted to Mr. Akhilesh in 2017.

The ‘bow and arrow’

Another symbol which is currently under contestation is the ‘bow and arrow’ in Maharashtra. Allotted to the “real” Shiv Sena led by Eknath Shinde, the symbol was first put to use by the Thackeray patriarch Bal Thackeray in 1989.

Meanwhile, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, which was created in 1972 on the birth anniversary of tribal leader Birsa Munda, uses the exact same ‘bow and arrow’ symbol in Jharkhand.

Bihar’s Janata Dal (United) party, whose symbol is simply an ‘arrow’, has also become part of this club, as in 2019 the ECI declared that the party will not be allowed to use its symbol in Maharashtra or Jharkhand owing to the similarities.