kolkata when elections are fought on social media and voters are caught up in a digital world can election symbols languish in the realm of bullock carts and broomstech is the overriding theme of free symbols released by the commission reflecting indias swift transformation from a traditional country to an urban nation from cctv camera to computer mouse pen drive to laptop and mobile charger to bread toaster accessories that have become a part of our daily lives are among the crop of symbols assigned to independent candidates and unrecognised parties marking quite an evolution from free symbols of yesteryears bullock cart axe basket candle and carrot the lantern and broom once free symbols have now become reserved symbols of lalu prasads rashtriya janta dal and arvind kejriwals aam aadmi partythis points to the transformation of the country from bharat to india it all started with a bullock cart and similar symbols several decades ago today we have robots and laptops to choose from says political analyst biswanath chakraborty who also teaches political science at rabindra bharati university in the first lok sabha elections 90 of the electorate were from rural india according to the 2011 census data 37 of india now lives in cities and towns west bengal has 33 of its people living in cities in gujarat and maharashtra the figure is almost 50 for this burgeoning urban populace laptops and cellphones are empowering social symbolsanalysts like chakraborty feel the newage symbols will help politicians attract young voters who form a bulk of indias electorate and will play an influential role in swinging opinion out of the 90 crore voters this time 37 crores belong to the 1835 age group of which 15 crore are firsttime voters bengal has enrolled 206 lakh new voters this time the highest in the countryujjan ghosh 20 is pursuing a course in artificial intelligence from a private engineering college for him an election symbol is his first introduction to a party i know what i can expect from the candidate or the outfit when i see the symbol he says ajay dahal a farmer in kalimpong is contesting as an independent candidate from darjeeling he says his symbol of laptop is making it easier for him to communicate his agenda with the electorate the youth of darjeeling need jobs and technology is the future in the coming years most jobs will be in the technology sector or in related fields i want to convey to the youth of darjeeling through my symbol that my vision for them is clear and they will not be wasting their vote by electing me says dahal elections symbols were introduced so that unlettered voters could identify their candidates as per the election symbols reservation and allotment order 1968 the ec allots symbols to anyone contesting the polls an independent candidate or someone contesting on behalf of an unrecognised political party has to approach the commission and get a symbol allotted from the list of free