With new symbols and split entities, it’s back to the campaign drawing board for parties in Maharashtra
The two Shiv Senas, two NCPs, four party symbols, and the pulsating grudge match at the heart of Maharashtra politics has forced political observers to go back to the first principles of political mobilisation in this Lok Sabha election An important part of this mobilisation is the party symbol, providing an easy identification of political parties, a coda for their ideology, leadership, and community base. For Jayashree Ballikar, co-ordinator for the Shiv Sena in Kolhapur, the change in her party’s symbol has meant a door-to-door campaign to publicise the new mashal symbol given to her party after the Shiv Sena was awarded the party’s original bow-and-arrow symbol. The Shiv Sena came up with the ‘mashal geet’ or a flaming torch song for easy identification, but it is still short notice for any party to change public perceptions before the polls. How important these can be was illustrated by the NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal who not only has the distinction of having won the polls on the flaming torch symbol on behalf of the Shiv Sena in 1985, but also, as one of the founding members of the NCP in 1999, has the experience of what it is like to go into polls with a new symbol within a very short period of time.
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