Calcutta, Feb. 22 :    Calcutta, Feb. 22:  It is uncertain whether a reserved election symbol will be allotted to the Party for Democratic Socialism floated by Saifuddin Chowdhury and Samir Putatunda before the ensuing Assembly elections. The Election Commission rules say a party could seek a reserved symbol only if it bags at least 6 per cent of the total valid votes polled in an election or has a sizeable representation in the Assembly. State chief electoral officer Sabyasachi Sen today said at Writers' Buildings that PDS leaders have to obtain a registration certificate from the Election Commission before applying for a symbol. 'It is the prerogative of the commission to decide whether to allot or not any reserved symbol to a party which is yet to contest any election,' Sen said. However, there are two such precedents. The commission had allotted symbols to the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Trinamul Congress before they had contested any polls. Trinamul had applied for a reserved symbol in 1998, claiming that the party was set up with a large number of grassroots Congress workers. It had submitted drawings of six preferred symbols and requested the Commission to allot any one of them. The commission then set up a special committee to decide on the issue. Initially, it was not in favour of allotting a symbol to Trinamul. But the panel had to change its mind after arguments that the party, which was yet to contest any poll, had two MPs - Mamata Banerjee and Ajit Panja - in the dissolved Lok Sabha and a number of MLAs in its fold. Earlier, the Rastriya Janata Dal, led by former Bihar chief minister Laloo Prasad Yadav, was allotted a symbol on similar grounds. The commission reluctantly allotted one of the six drawings - grass and flower - placed before it by the Trinamul. While selecting the symbol, the commission had closely considered the party's name, which was stated in the application as 'Grassroots Congress', the English translation of Trinamul Congress. In the case of Chowdhury's party, there is no MP in the current Lok Sabha and only two MLAs in the Assembly which will be dissolved on Saturday. 'It is the discretion of the Election Commission to decide whether the precedents will be accepted as a valid ground to offer a reserved symbol to Chowdhury's new party. Otherwise the party may have to contest Assembly elections with the available free symbols with the status of Independent,' Sen said.