ISLAMABAD: The emba­­­ttled PTI on Friday asked the ECP to immediately allot it the “bat” as its electoral symbol for the upcoming general elections.

The party, which has complained of the lack of a level playing field, termed the delay in issuance of the electoral symbol “unjusti­fiable” and “intolerable”.

“The ECP should immediately issue its detailed written order pertaining to the party election symbol because the inordinate delay and non-issuance of the oral decision made on August 30 [has] raised many eyebrows,” a PTI spokesman claimed in a press release.

The spokesman urged the watchdog to promptly release detailed decision in line with the verbal order given on Aug 30, as it had no legal and constitutional justification to withhold the party’s electoral symbol.

The spokesman made it clear that the concept of free, fair and transparent polls “without the largest and most formidable political force of the country was a farce”.

He added that the “conspiracy to keep PTI out of the electoral arena on the state-mandated and unkn­own technical grou­nds” was akin to an attack on the Constitution and political system of the country.

The PTI’s intra-party elections, he claimed, were held on June 9, 2022, in pursuance of the party’s 2019 constitution, which the watchdog had accepted as correct, and confirmed it in its Aug 30 oral order.

He said the unjustified and unnecessary delay in the issuance of a written decision by ECP had strengthened a perception that the original decision might be changed to put the party in a constant state of uncertainty before the elections.

He urged the ECP to avoid unconstitutional and illegal political engineering and issue a written decision regarding ‘bat’ as PTI’s election symbol without delay.

He cautioned that people would never accept if the ECP deviated from its constitutional mandate and tried to “steal” the PTI’s election symbol unlawfully.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2023