New Delhi, Dec. 30: The divide in Lucknow's first family could yank the cycle out of the Assembly race even before the ballot battle begins given the time the Election Commission takes to decide a dispute over a party symbol.

Amid reports that Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav planned to petition the poll panel to freeze the Samajwadi Party's cycle symbol, former chief election commissioners (CEC) told this newspaper that it would set in motion a quasi-judicial process that could take at least four months to settle.

"It will be a complex situation," S.Y. Quraishi said, adding that if the poll panel failed to ascertain before the elections - scheduled to be announced next week - which faction prima facie had the bulk of the membership, it would have no option but to freeze the cycle symbol.

"But nothing can be said with any certainty at this juncture," he said.

The poll panel decides all issues related to symbol allotment according to The Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968. Section 15 of this order dwells on the commission's power to decide situations where rival/splinter groups contest for a symbol.

Section 15 states: "When the Commission is satisfied on information in its possession that there are rival sections or groups of a recognised political party each of whom claims to be that party, the Commission may, after taking into account all the available facts and circumstances of the case and hearing such representatives of the sections or groups and other persons as desire to be heard, decide that one such rival section or group or none of such rival sections or groups is that recognised political party and the decision of the Commission shall be binding on all such rival sections or groups."

T.S. Krishnamurthy, who was CEC between February 2004 and May 2005, said: "When there is a dispute and one of the parties petitions the commission for freezing the recognised symbol or staking claim to it, then the Election Commission will have to decide the matter in a process akin to that of a tribunal."

Quraishi, who was CEC earlier this decade, termed the process "quasi-judicial".

Once an application is received from one side, notices have to be sent to the other side and both sides will have to be heard out.

In such a scenario, the two sides will submit signatures of support from their legislators and members. The commission has the arduous task of weeding out bogus claims of support.

"There are lawyers involved by both sides. This could take four to five months, making it impossible to resolve the issue in time for the Uttar Pradesh elections," Quraishi said.

"If the symbol is frozen, it would be easier to join another party and contest under its symbol as forming a new party too would take at least a month and a half."

Should the Samajwadi fight for the cycle symbol go to the wire, it could mirror what happened in the Congress in 1969. Indira Gandhi had then decided to split the Congress and form a party of her own - Congress (R). The Congress symbol then was a pair of bullocks bearing a yoke.

Indira Gandhi wanted to use the symbol but the other group - Congress (O) - appealed against it. So, she settled for the cow and calf symbol.

After she split the party a second time post her 1977 election defeat to form Congress (I), she gave up the cow and calf symbol that had become representative of Emergency's mother-and-son regime. The hand was then picked as the Congress symbol and remains till today.

The CPI has the oldest unchanged symbol - ears of corn and a sickle.

Even after the 1964 split in the party, the symbol stayed with the CPI as the breakaway CPM did not stake claim.