SHILLONG, Feb 7: After being denied by the Election Commission, the VPP will now pitch for their party symbol ‘U Prah’ (winnower) with the returning officers.
VPP president Ardent Miller Basaiawmoit said the party will be asking the returning officers to allot the party candidates the symbol ‘U Prah’ since it is enlisted as a free symbol by the Election Commission.
“We will now ask the ROs to give us this symbol and they cannot deny us since there is a provision in Para 12 of the Election Symbols (Reservation & Allotment) Order, 1968,” Basaiawmoit said here on Tuesday.
Stating that the VPP is a registered unrecognised party, he said that the ECI could not give them the common symbol since they had failed to submit the list of party candidates within stipulated time. “We were unable to submit the list of candidates on time since there were many ticket aspirants. We took a lot of time to properly analyse the ticket aspirants. It is due to this reason we missed the deadline,” he said.
Calling the issue trivial, Basaiawmoit said that the winnower is a free symbol which should not be denied to the party.
It may be recalled that ECI Under Secretary Manish Kumar said the party failed to submit the list of Assembly constituencies it was contesting in, five days before the date on which the notification of the election is scheduled to be issued i.e. on January 25, 2023.
