Bangles, a banana, a bead necklace, a carrom board, a child's frock, a lady's purse, a bowl of ice cream, a toffee, a neck tie, a carrot, a brief case, a brinjal, a ball, are all part of the 100 free symbols available to new parties or political formations.

In fact, the leaders of the two factions of the recently split Janata Dal, Sharad Yadav and H D Deve Gowda, should consider themselves lucky that they were assigned an arrow and a farmer on a tractor respectively. Their lot could have been far worse.

Imagine campaigning with a set of bangles as the symbol. Or worse still with the humble brinjal to represent your party. Or a suitcase. The symbolism would defeat the purpose altogether.

Under the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968, all recognised political parties have tobe allotted a symbol so that all contesting candidates of the party can be identified by the symbol.

Recognition does not come easy for political parties. A party that has been involved in political activity for a continuous period of five years, has to have at least one member out of every 25 members in a House of the People, or has at least one member to the Legislative Assembly of the State for every 30 members of that Assembly, to be eligible for recognition.

Parties can also earn recognition if the total number of valid votes polled by all the contesting candidates put up by the party in the last general election is not less than six per cent of the total number of valid votes polled by all the contesting candidates in the said election.

Then again they become eligible, if a political party gathers not less than four per cent of the total number of valid votes polled by all the contesting candidates including those candidates who have forfeited their deposits.

If a party meets the above criteriain four or more states, it will enjoy the status of a recognised ``national party'' so long as the party continues to meet these criteria in subsequent elections.

However, if the party meets the recognition criteria in less than four states, it would earn recognition as a ``state party'' in the state or states where it is so recognised.

The EC's rules on the allotment of symbols is unambiguous: A candidate fielded by a national party in any election will be allotted only the symbol reserved for that party and none other.

The rules are similar for a candidate of a state party. He or she will get only the party's reserved symbol to contest an election.

But there are occasions where the same symbol is allotted to more than one party in different states. For example, the elephant is the symbol of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in all states, except in Assam and Sikkim where the elephant is also the symbol of the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and the Sikkim Sangram Parishad (SSP) respectively. If BSP candidateswere to contest the polls in Assam or Sikkim they would have to choose another motif from the list of free symbols.

The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) in Tamil Nadu, the Kerala Congress (Mani) in Kerala, the United Goans Democratic Party (UGDP) in Goa and the Tripura Upajati Juba Samity (TUJS) in Tripura all share the same symbol -- two leaves. But since there is little chance of these parties trampling on each other's territory, the arrangement continues.

The breaking away of factions like the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the split in the JD in recent weeks have led to a hubbub over the election symbols to be allotted to these parties. NCP leader Sharad Pawar started out by unilaterally projecting the charkha (spinning wheel) as his party's symbol.

But the EC decided to freeze the charkha, and has since allocated the `alarm clock' to the NCP.

Another of the NCP's allies, a breakaway faction of the Republican Party of India (RPI) led by Ramdas Athawale suffereda blow when the EC gave the RPI's original symbol, the `rising sun', to the party faction led by Gawai-Kawade.

In the case of the JD, Deve Gowda was allotted the `farmer driving tractor' symbol, while Sharad Yadav faction had to be satisfied with the `arrow'. This raised fears that the voter in Bihar would be confused, since the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) has the `bow and arrow' as its symbol.