QUETTA: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has allotted the election symbol of ‘cow’ to the newly-founded Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) as the party had objections with the ‘mountain’ symbol issued by the ECP earlier.

A majority of the party leaders had expressed reservations over ‘mountain’ as their election symbol, saying that in their constituencies voters would not be able to understand it.

Leaders especially from Jaffarabad, Nasirabad and Lehri opposed the symbol, and asked BAP founder Saeed Ahmed Hashmi and president Jam Kamal Alyani to approach the ECP to change it.

It is learnt that some of the candidates had threatened that if the party did not change the symbol then they would contest elections independently. They particularly requested ‘cow’ to be issued as BAP’s election symbol.

The party leadership applied to the election commission for reissuing of the symbol, which was then changed to ‘cow’.

Published in Dawn, June 10th, 2018