BJP symbol criticised

By Our Staff Reporter

TUTICORIN, OCT.16. Even as the BJP leadership in the State had exhorted the party activists to popularise the party symbol `Lotus', the former TNCC president, Mr. Kumari Anandan, today criticised the BJP for having the National Flower as its election symbol.

He told presspersons here that the BJP leadership, as a mark of respect to the National Flower, should voluntarily give up using it as the election symbol. No party in the country had been allowed to use the National Animal-`Tiger' or the National Bird- `Peacock' as poll logos, he said.

If the BJP was unrelenting and continued to have `Lotus' as its symbol, the patriotic organisations and individuals would seek the intervention of the Election Commission to withdraw permission to use the National Flower as a poll symbol.

If the Election Commission also did not respond favourably, ``as a Congressman, I will move the court in the matter'', he said. To a query, Mr. Anandan said in view of the previous experience vis- a-vis the organisational elections in the State unit of the party, efforts must be made now to ensure a free and fair poll for the TNCC.

On the claims the revive ``Kamaraj rule'' in the State, he said for achieving this goal, the State unit should remain united and tread the path laid down by the late leader. Only if factionalism in the TNCC was ended, the Congress high command would respect the feelings of the PCC, he opined.

The Gandhiji Forum, a non-party outfit headed by him, would take up issues related to upgradation of environment, linking of rivers, implementation of the multi-crore Sethusamudram Project etc., he said.

On the occasion of his completion of fifty years in public life, Mr.Anandan appealed to the nationalist forces scattered now in different parties and outfits to rally together and work for the national interest.

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Section  : Southern States
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