In a huge set back to the Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, the Election Commission on Monday barred Janata Dal United (JDU) from using the arrow symbol to contest polls in the states of Jharkhand and Maharashtra on account of being similar to the bow and arrow symbol used by Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and Shiv Sena. "Having considered all aspects of the matter, the Commission has directed that the JD(U) will not be granted concession under Paragraph 10 of the Symbols Order to use their reserved symbol 'arrow' for contesting elections in the states of Jharkhand and Maharashtra henceforth," the Election Commission said in an order issued on August 16 that was made public on Monday.

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The JDU had recently decided to fight the upcoming Jharkhand assembly polls alone without the aid of the BJP, its alliance partner in neighbouring Bihar. The EC's latest order comes as a big relief for Jharkhand's main opposition party JMM as JDU had managed to block both JMM and Shiv Sena from using their symbols in Bihar in the recently held 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

While the poll watchdog had allowed the JDU to contest elections in Jharkhand on its symbol in Lok Sabha polls, on JMM recent request that similar symbols tend to confuse voters, it decided to withdraw the permission.

In its application to the Election Commission, asking to stop JDU from using its arrow symbol in Jharkhand, the JMM had said that it was the main opposition party in the state with 19 out of 81 MLAs from the party.

"JMM has been allotted the symbol 'Bow and Arrow' in 1985 and since then the Party has contested on the same symbol in several states apart from Jharkhand where the symbol is reserved for the party," JMM said in its application.

The EC has not lifted the ban placed on both JMM and Shiv Sena from using their symbols in Bihar.