The party leadership has been interviewing candidates for Maharashtra for both the Lok Sabha and Assembly election during the last few days. The district-wise meetings have apparently shown up a large number of enthusiastic first-timers who want to contest.

``Though we are doing the usual rounds, the important thing is to have a symbol for people to identify with,'' says district leaders mainly from western Maharashtra. The problem becomes more acute since many of the key campaigners as well as candidates are from the Congress and their electorate identifies them with the ``hand'' symbol. ``It won't be a problem to tell people to cast their vote onanother symbol but it will have to be said repeatedly over a period of time. We can't afford to lose days,'' says state NCP chief Chhagan Bhujbal.

To tide over the delay, the party has kept in readiness all other components needed for the campaign. The designs for posters and banners, prototype of other printed material is nearly finalised with blank space kept where the symbol should be. Party insiders say that even the printing contracts have been decided. ``It's only a question of hearing from the EC and we can give the go-ahead for printing and let the campaign roll.''

The EC decision was delayed because initially the Congress raised an objection on the grounds that the charkha belonged to the party though its official symbol is the hand. Within a few days, the Indian Congress (Socialist) to which the symbol actually belongs, too took objection and sent a strong representation to the EC.

Its primary reason was that only a faction of the IC (Socialist) led by the ageing Sarat Chandra Sinhadecided to merge with Sharad Pawar's NCP last month while the party remains intact. Logically then, the symbol too should remain with the party and Sinha had no right to take it to the NCP.