How Indira Gandhi chose ‘haath’ over ‘haathi’

New Delhi: When Indira Gandhi chose the ‘panja’ over an elephant and a bicycle, few would have thought that a possibility would emerge almost 40 years later of the three symbols joining hands.

The story of Gandhi’s choice of the open palm symbol, recalled in a new book, comes amid talk of an electoral alliance in Uttar Pradesh between the SP, whose symbol is the bicycle, and the BSP, which has the elephant as its electoral trademark. The Congress had an alliance with the SP in the last state Assembly elections. The former Indian Prime Minister opted for the hand symbol after a split in the Congress in 1978. Gandhi was reportedly relieved to be rid of the old symbol, says political journalist Rasheed Kidwai’s book Ballot — Ten Episodes That Have Shaped India’s Democracy.

The symbol, the book states, had been ridiculed across the country – with the cow being seen as Indira and the calf as her son Sanjay.

She asked for the old party symbol of a pair of bullocks, but that had by then been frozen by the Election Commission. Buta Singh, who was then AICC general secretary, petitioned the Election Commission for a new symbol, according to the recently released book.

Indira Gandhi was away in Vijayawada with P.V. Narasimha Rao when Singh was asked by the Commission to pick a symbol and the choices given to him were an elephant, a bicycle and an open palm, the book published by Hachette states.

Unsure of which symbol to pick, Singh sought Gandhi’s approval.

The line was possibly not clear or Singh’s accent may have been thick, but Gandhi kept hearing the word ‘haathi’, or elephant, instead of ‘haath’, or hand. “She kept refusing even as he tried to explain that it was not the elephant but the open palm symbol that he was advising her to pick. An exasperated Indira handed the telephone to Rao. In a matter of seconds, Rao, a master of more than a dozen languages, understood what Singh was trying to convey and reportedly shouted out to Singh to call it a panja. Relieved, Indira took the receiver and wholeheartedly agreed,” the book states.