The election commission’s order to have all statues of UP chief minister Mayawati and that of her party symbol, the elephant, covered ahead of the polls in the state may have brought cheers to the opposition parties.

After all, they have been complaining to the EC that the numerous statues of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo and her party symbol were clearly aimed at promoting her party, for some time now.

However, they failed to realise that the EC, by issuing this directive, has inadvertently become party to BSP’s poll campaign.

As Bollywood actor Anupam Kher rightly pointed out in one of his tweets, "A covered Mayawati statue will get more attention than an uncovered one. People will say, 'Oh that is Mayawati's statue covered’.”

Meanwhile, BSP has already turned this seemingly adverse condition to its advantage telling its core Dalit votebank that the party's opponents are once again targeting them and not Mayawati or her monuments.

While the order per se could be centered on a precedent when in the 2004 general election the EC ensured that the pictures of the former prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, on hoardings on the national highway were covered, extending it to cover the elephants is certainly following it to a T.

Going by EC’s logic of providing level playing field to all parties as rationale behind the order, it then would have to also ensure, no elephant walked the street during BSP’s election campaign or for that matter, cycle, the party symbol of BSP’s arch-rival Samajwadi party be banned too.

Also, if symbols were so significant to election results, the Republican Party of India formed by the grandson of BR Ambedkar, Prakash Ambedkar would still be in business. After Babasaheb’s death hundreds of his statues came up all over the country. This could have easily been taken advantage of by his grandson and his party in fighting elections. But this did not happen and while the ideals of Ambedkar have lived on, RPI has been decimated.

Then, there is also the question of impracticality of the order, which, if not impossible, is a humongous task for UP officials.  It entails covering of about 11 statues of Mayawati (nine at Lucknow park and two at Noida) and 77 elephants (25 at Lucknow and 52 at Noida).

While UP officials could still handle the difficult task of covering all the statues by January 11 deadline, the EC will find it hard to handle some unsavoury questions its directive has generated.