The Election Commission of India (EC) assigned the bicycle symbol to the SP after Mulayam Singh Yadav split from the Janata Dal to form his own party in October 1992.

Under the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allocation) Order 1968, the EC is empowered to recognize political parties and allocate symbols to them.

From 2006 to 2013

The bicycles were first used as bomb carriers in the 2006 Malegaon bombings, in which a Hindutva group led by former RSS pracharak Sunil Joshi was accused of targeting the Muslim-majority city in Maharashtra. According to the NIA indictment, the bombers strapped two bombs to different bicycles and planted them in the city on September 8, 2006.

On November 23, 2007, a series of explosions occurred between 1:00 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. near courts in Varanasi, Lucknow and Faizabad. The five bombs in these explosions which killed 15 people were attached to bicycles. Investigators later claimed that the Indian Mujahideen (IM) were behind the attacks.

Earlier that year, on May 22, 2007, three bombs kept on bicycles had exploded in Gorakhpur, injuring three people. In December 2020, a local court recognized suspected HuJI member Mohammad Tariq Qasmi and sentenced him to life in prison for the attacks.

On May 13, 2008, nine bombs attached to bicycles exploded at eight locations in Jaipur, killing 71 people. This was the first outburst where IM took responsibility by emailing various media houses.

On July 26, 2008, 22 bombs killed 56 people in Ahmedabad. Several of these bombs turned out to have been installed on bicycles. MI claimed responsibility and its alleged members were sentenced to death by a trial court on Friday.

On August 1, 2012, bicycles were used as bomb racks in Pune. One person was injured in the four low-level explosions and suspected MI agents were arrested.

Less than a year later, MI used two rounds to plant bombs in Dilsukhnagar market in Hyderabad on February 21, 2013. Eighteen people were killed.

Around the world

Terrorist groups have long used bicycles to plant bombs. They are easy and cheap to obtain anywhere in the world and increase the impact of the explosion by adding jagged metal shards to the shrapnel from the explosion.

The first recorded case of a bicycle bomb dates back to 1939, when the Irish Republican Army left a bomb in the basket of a bicycle which exploded, killing five people in Coventry in the UK.

Subsequently, bicycle bombs were used in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s in the UK and Germany, and throughout the 21st century in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Iraq, in Russia and Spain, among other countries.

(With Manish Sahu and Anisha Dutta)