The Telangana High Court on Tuesday issued notices to the election authorities in a writ petition filed by Telangana Yuva Shakti party seeking a common symbol to all its candidates contesting in the ongoing Assembly elections.
A bench of Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice N.V. Shravan Kumar, after hearing the contentions presented by the party president B. Ram Mohan Reddy appearing as party-in-person, issued notices to the Chief Election Commissioner and Secretary of the State Election Commission. The bench instructed them to respond to the notices by explaining the reasons for not allocating common symbols to the party candidates.
Mr. Reddy contended that his party represented to the election authorities to allot a common symbol to all its candidates contesting the ongoing Assembly polls. But they did not respond positively, he said. He informed the bench that he got the party registered in 2018. It was not a recognised party. The petitioner told the HC that the party submitted a petition to the Election Commission of India on October 20 to allot a common symbol to all its candidates. However, the ECI had not considered its representation, he said.
In a separate matter, the bench declined to interfere in a petition filed by Praja Shanti Party seeking a direction to Election Commission of India to allot helicopter or ring as its symbol in the present Telangana Assembly elections.
The bench, observing that it cannot interfere in the matter since the election notification was already issued, closed the petition. The bench said the petitioner can approach the election authorities if he was aggrieved with any matter and seek redressal of the grievance.
The bench adjourned another writ petition filed by Feroz Khan, who is contesting from Nampally Assembly seat on Congress ticket seeking details of the Absent, Shift, Death and Duplicate (A.S.D. &D) voters from the constituency, to November 20 after his counsel sought time to amend the prayer.
The petitioner’s counsel submitted to the bench that the petitioner wanted the election authorities to supply him details of the A.S.D. &D voters of Nampally constituency contending that there were several thousands of such votes in the constituency. The bench pointed out that, however, such request could not be culled out from the prayer in the petition.
The bench also sought to know under what provisions of the law the petitioner can be provided such details. The petitioner’s advocate requested the bench to grant some time to amend the prayer and present the sections of law related to the matter.
