Megastar and Praja Rajyam Party president Chiranjeevi has made a strange claim before the High Court, while challenging the decision of Election Commission of India not to grant a common symbol for his party candidates all over the State.

Chiranjeevi has claimed that there is a 16 per cent vote bank for him in the State. One may wonder how he could claim the vote bank, when his party did not contest a single election in the State so far. His argument, however, is that nearly 50 lakh people had enrolled as PRP members during the recent membership drive and they constitute 16 per cent of the total number of voters in the State.

But EC will not go by the membership enrolment, because there is every possibility that the membership records are fudged and fabricated. Membership enrolment does not mean, all those who had enrolled would vote for PRP.

It may be noted that in 2004 elections, Telugu Desam did not get as many votes as the number of members it had enrolled before the elections. So, EC won't accept such a claim!