The ruling TRS in Telangana continues to face the problem of ‘identical symbols’ even in the Nagarjunasagar Assembly bypoll.

The Election Commission has allotted tractor, road roller, chapati maker symbols to Independent candidates, which look very similar to TRS symbol ‘car’.

The TRS leaders claim that it lost Dubbak Assembly bypoll to BJP in December 2020 due to these identical symbols arguing that TRS voters voted for Independents confusing those symbols with car.

BJP candidate in Dubbak Raghunandan Rao won with a slender majority of just 1,118 votes over TRS candidate Solipeta Sujatha.

Though several Independent candidates contested Dubbak bypoll, one Independent candidate Bandaru Nagaraju got 3,570 votes, who was allotted chapati maker symbol which looked similar to TRS car symbol.

TRS leaders claim that TRS voters voted for Nagaraju due to confusion and that’s why he got 3,570 votes while all other Independents got votes in single digit.

TRS leaders say this alone is proof that Nagaraju got TRS votes.

In 2018 Assembly polls too, TRS leaders claimed that TPCC chief Uttam Kumar Reddy won from Huzurnagar with the narrow majority because an Independent candidate was allotted road roller symbol which was similar to car symbol.

Now, the EC has again allotted road roller, tractor, chapati maker symbols to Independents in Nagarjunasagar, which is giving sleepless nights to TRS leaders.