NEW DELHI, May 14: Faced with growing protests from animal rights activists and complaints of cruelty to animals, the EC plans to stop allotting animal symbols to political parties.

Years ago, when the Commission decided to do away with allotting smaller animals and birds as party symbols, it thought it had ended the problem of cruelty.

But the Commission had not reckoned with the insensitivity of political parties. Though the EC had decided that all symbols depicting birds and smaller animals should be replaced with inanimate objects, it allowed some parties to retain symbols of larger animals like elephants, tigers and lions as their poll emblem.

The Commission felt that there was not much scope for treating bigger animals badly; but the last general election proved otherwise. The nine registered regional parties which were allotted these symbols found ingenuous ways of using the animals to add a touch of drama to their campaigns.

Decorated elephants holding aloft regal umbrellas, lions and tigers in cages were all paraded through the streets and taken from one public meeting to another, subjecting them to tortuous journeys.

What was worse, rival parties would also heap indignities on the hapless animals to show their contempt for their political foes. Following complaints from the public at large and the country's foremost animal rights activist, Menaka Gandhi, the Commission now plans to withdraw all symbols depicting the large animals as well.

But this may be easier said than done. At last week's brainstorming session with the major political parties on electoral reform, the EC found that parties which have been allotted these symbols, some of them decades ago, are in no mood to give them up. And this is quite apart from the ongoing tussle between parties which share the same symbol. Kanshi Ram's Bahujan Samaj Party, for example shares the same symbol, the elephant, with the Asom Gana Parishad, Tamil Nadu's Patali Makkal Katchi and the Sikkim Sangram Parishad.

At the all party meet, Kanshi Ram insisted that the BSP wanted to retain the elephant symbol as it reflected his party's enormous support base. Such opposition, notwithstanding, the EC is determined to put an end to the practice of using animals as symbols.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.