On one hand, all the political parties are preparing for the Lok Sabha elections 2024 in India. The Election Commission has completed almost all the preparations to conduct fair elections. But do you know how the parties were given election symbols when elections were held for the first time in independent India? After all, on which election symbol did Congress contest the elections at that time? Today we will tell you about the history related to the election symbol.
election symbol
The election symbol of the political party Congress is hand i.e. claw. But in 1951, the country’s first Lok Sabha Elections In this party the election symbol was something different. According to the information, at one time Congress also had the option of changing its election symbol to elephant or bicycle. What used to be the symbol of BJP before lotus?
pair of oxen
Indian National Congress (INC) is the oldest political party in the country. It was established in 1885. When the country’s first general elections were held in 1951-1952, the Congress under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru used to seek votes on the election symbol of a pair of two oxen. This symbol was successful in creating coordination between the common people and the farmers. After this, for almost two decades the Congress Party used to contest elections with this symbol. But in 1970-71 there was a split in the Congress. Therefore the symbol of a pair of bulls was confiscated by the Election Commission. At that time the dispute was settled by giving the tricolor charkha to the old Congress led by Kamaraj and by giving the symbol of cow and calf to the new Congress party led by Indira Gandhi. However, within a decade, controversy over the symbol again broke out in the Congress Party.
emergency over
After this, after the end of Emergency in 1977, the popularity of Congress declined significantly during the tenure of Indira Gandhi. During this period, the Election Commission had also confiscated the symbol of cow and calf. At that time Congress was going through a difficult phase. It is said that at that time Indira Gandhi came to seek the blessings of the then Shankaracharya Swami Chandrashekharendra Saraswati. At that time Shankaracharya had become silent after listening to Indira Gandhi’s words. After some time, he raised his right hand and gave blessings. It is said that the story of the current election symbol of Congress started from here.
options in election symbol
After another split of the Congress in 1979, Indira Gandhi founded the Congress (I). He had sent Buta Singh to the Election Commission office to finalize the election symbol. There the Election Commission had given the option of elephant, bicycle and open palm as the election symbols of Congress (I). Indira Gandhi had decided to make the claw as the election symbol, keeping in mind the idea of party leader RK Rajaratnam and the blessings of Shankaracharya. With this new election symbol, Congress got a big victory in the elections. At that time, this symbol was considered good luck for the party, from that time till now the candidates of Congress Party contest elections with this symbol.
elephant and bicycle
In 1984, leader Kanshi Ram had formed BSP i.e. Bahujan Samaj Party and made elephant the symbol of the political party. Whereas Mulayam Singh Yadav formed Samajwadi Party in 1992 and his election symbol was bicycle.
BJP
At the time of the first general elections in the country, BJP was All India Bharatiya Jan Sangh. At that time the election symbol of Jan Sangh was a burning lamp. Another party in that election was Kisan Mazdoor Praja Socialist Party, whose election symbol was Jhopri. In the elections of 1977, the same Jhopri Nishal based Praja Party merged with Jan Sangh with Deepak symbol and Bharatiya Kranti Dal led by Chaudhary Charan Singh. After this, a new party named Janata Party came into existence and the election symbol of this party was a farmer carrying a plow on his shoulder. However, this organization could not run for long. After the disintegration of the Janata Party in 1980, the leaders of the erstwhile Jan Sangh formed the Bharatiya Janata Party, which got the election symbol lotus flower. Whereas Lok Dal led by Chaudhary Charan Singh had got the election symbol of a farmer plowing a field. In this way these big parties got their election symbols.
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