The Election Commission took the decision to award the cycle poll symbol to UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav-led faction of Samajwadi Party.
Appearing for Akhilesh Yadav, senior counsels Rajeev Dhavan and Kapil Sibal argued before the commission that majority of the MPs, MLAs, MLACs and party delegates are with the Uttar Pradesh chief minister.
Akhilesh camp had argued that since the numbers are stacked in favour of the CM, the symbol should go to him.
But the Mulayam camp, represented by senior advocate and former solicitor general Mohan Parasaran had said since there is “no vertical split in the party such as SP (Mulayam) and SP (Akhilesh), the commission lacks jurisdiction to allocate symbol to one of the groups.
The assembly poll process for Uttar Pradesh will start rolling tomorrow with notification for the first phase of voting on February 11 covering 73 constituencies spread over 15 distracts in Muslim-dominated Western UP.
