B. SUDERSHAN REDDY, J.

( 1 ) THE petitioner-Telangana Rashtra samithi invokes the extraordinary jurisdiction of this Court under Article 226 of the constitution of India praying for issuance of a writ of Mandamus declaring the action of the Election Commission of India in not allotting exclusive symbol to the petitioner- party as illegal and arbitrary, and, a consequential direction has been sought for allotment and reservation of an exclusive election symbol to the petitioner-party in order to enable it to contest in the ensuing assembly as well as Parliament elections.

( 2 ) THE abridged factual matrix on which the validity of the impugned order dated 10-2-2003 has been questioned in the writ petition may be broadly indicated as follows: the Telangana Rashtra Samithi was formed in the State of Andhra Pradesh as a political party. Telangana Region in the State of Andhra Pradesh comprises of ten districts of Ranga Reddy, Hyderabad, Medak, nizamabad. Nalgonda, Mahabubnagar, warangal, Khammam, Karimnagar and adilabad. The region has about 14,500 villages. That, according to the averments made in the affidavit filed in support of the writ petition, the people of Telangana region did not want to become a part of integrated state of Andhra Pradesh. Even at the time of formation of the integrated State of Andhra predesh, the people of Telangana expressed apprehension of their being merged with the Andhra State. The States reorganisation Commission opined that telangana region will become a viable State economically, politically and geopraphically and should be made as a separate State instead of merging the same with the Andhra state. The State of Andhra Pradesh, however, which includes Telangana region came to be formed on 1-11-1956. The petitioner in its affidavit refers to various instances which accroding to it were responsible for the backwardness of this region, even after its merger into the integrated State of Andhra Pradesh on 1-11-1956. Various guarantees given under the Gentleman s Agreement arrived at between the leaders of both the regions at the time of formation of the State were given a go-by. The situation led to a peoples movement in the year 1969 demanding a separate State of Telangana. It was followed by another movement of the people of andhra region in the year 1971-72 for formation of a separate Andhra State. This resulted in issuance of Presidential Order under Article 371 -D of the Constitution of india wherein the regional imbalances in the matter of providing seats in educational institutions and posts in public employment were sought to be removed and the regional interests were sought to be protected and regulated. In spite of the same, the telangana region continued to suffer and the exploitation of the region became very acute and once again the people of Telangana have started demanding a separate State.

( 3 ) ULTIMATELY, on 27-4-2001, the people belonging to various segments of the region gathered and formed the political party for achieving as separate State of Telangana. The petitioner-party approached the State election Commission for registration as a political party, and, it was registered as a political party by the State Election commission on 16-6-2001. The Sate election Commission accordingly informed the petitioner-party that from out of the list of three symbols available for allotment, it can "choose any three symbols in order of preference. One of the three symbols chosen by you will be allotted to your political party. " It also applied for reservation of symbol by the State Election Commissioner and the symbol "haldar within wheel" was allotted to it. A petition was filed before the election Commission of India for registration of the petitioner-party as a State Party and the Commission vide its order dated 21-8-2001 has registered the Telangana rashtra Samithi as a political party under section 29-A of the Representation of the people Act, 1951.

( 4 ) IT is further stated that in the

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