From ‘matchbox’ to ‘jackfruit’ and ‘mike’ to ‘bicycle’, parties and candidates campaigned to popularise their symbols among the voters in the 2024 Lok Sabha election that concluded in Tamil Nadu last week. Among the lot, however, was one symbol that completed 66 years last month in being the identity of a recognised party — the ‘rising sun’ of the DMK.
Referred to as Udhayasuriyan in Tamil, it symbolises the sun rising between two mountains and bright yellow rays spreading far and wide. Initially a free symbol with the Election Commission (EC), the ‘rising sun’, however, became synonymous with the DMK in the then Madras State only eight years after the party was launched by C.N. Annadurai and after the EC recognised it in 1958, following the party’s performance in the 1957 election.
