In a 26-page order, the Commission said the Indian Congress (Socialist) which had the symbol had lost its claim to it as it had merged with the NCP. ``The name and the symbol have now got submerged in the identity of NCP and, therefore, the new formation cannot claim the symbol charkha,'' it ruled.

However, the NCP has been allowed the use of a common symbol under the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order. It asked the party to submit a list of three symbols, one of which would be reserved for it in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands where it had been registered.

The Congress had contested the claim of Pawar's party to the symbol as the ``charkha'' formed part of the Congress tricolour.

The three-member commission went by the precedent in its judgement of December 1997 in the case of the Rashtriya Janata Dal todeny the NCP the symbol. In that judgement, it had held that in the event of the split of a recognised party, the splinter groups from the main party would have to register themselves as new political parties and would have to contest elections as registered parties. It had said that they would gain recognition only on the basis of their poll performance.

``All political parties are put on notice once again that no concession of allotment of a common symbol to any splinter group would be extended to any party unless that party becomes entitled to be recognised as a state party on the basis of its own poll performance,'' the order said.

Referring to the Congress plea about the party tricolour, the Commission noted that parties had adopted certain flags in their respective party constitutions and some of them had not mentioned a flag that they intend to use.

It said that from now it intended to examine the designs and colours of flags of various political parties so that any similarity in their flags ortheir similarity with other national symbols or insignia did not cause confusion in the people's minds.

The Commission is conduction a hearing on the dispute between the Sharad Yadav and Deve Gowda factions of the Janata Dal over the ``wheel'' symbol tomorrow.