Evolution of Election Symbols in Indian Politics

Election symbols and their creative use have always been a key feature to look out for as India’s election season heats up. 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.

Since the Representation of the People Act, 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. 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.

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. Rafi reminds the voters in this song of the significance of this historical symbol.

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.

Four years after its inception in 1984, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) managed to make its mark in the 1988 Allahabad bye-elections. 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.

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. Arvind Kejriwal formed the Aam Aadmi Party in 2012, following the 2011 India Against Corruption protests led by Anna Hazare.

One of the six national parties in India as on 2024, the National People’s Party (NPP) was formed in 2013. Holding a book (the party’s symbol), Sangma announced it as the national symbol of the party because of the belief that only literacy and education can empower the weaker sections.

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.

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.