LAHORE: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has raised concerns about the allotment of incorrect election symbols to two of its Punjab Assembly candidates and written to the Election Commission to fix the issue.

In a letter, Senator Taj Haider, the official in charge of PPP’s central election cell, informed the chief election commissioner that a returning officer had allotted the ‘kettle’ instead of the ‘arrow’ as an electoral symbol to Fayyaz Bhatti, the PPP’s candidate for Lahore’s provincial constituency PP-163.

“I am writing to you to express my deep concern over the irregularity in the allotment of election symbol to PPP candidate Muha­m­m­ad Fayyaz Bhatti from PP-163, Punjab,” Mr Haider said.

“It is learned that Muhammad Fayyaz Bhatti had submitted his PPP ticket to the concerned returning officer on Jan 12, 2024, but still the returning officer listed him as an independent candidate and allotted him the kettle as the election symbol instead of the arrow, which is the PPP’s election symbol,” he added.

Similarly, another Pakistan Peoples Party candidate — Mujahid Islam, from the PP-119 constituency — has been allotted the “wheelchair” as an election symbol instead of the arrow, Senator Haider said in another letter to the chief election commissioner.

“In Punjab, the nominees of the PPP are being deprived of the arrow symbol,” Mr Haider lamented.

He said that this unexpected irregularity raised serious concerns about the integrity of the electoral process and the party feared that it might be a deliberate attempt to undermine the PPP candidates and could compromise the transparency of the election process.

He urged the chief election commissioner to take timely action to remove this irregularity by ensuring the allotment of the correct symbols to party candidates, besides investigating the reasons behind these mistakes by the returning officers.

The issue of incorrect election symbols for the PPP candidates comes as the party’s election campaign led by its chairman, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, has been in full swing in Punjab.

On several occasions, Mr Bhutto-Zardari has complained about the alleged historical discrimination against his party in the province. In a recent interaction with the media, he said the PPP could perform well in Punjab this time if provided a level playing field in the province.

Apart from filing his National Assembly nomination papers from Larkana, Mr Bhutto-Zardari will also contest from Lahore’s NA-127 seat, where he will compete against PML-N leader Ataullah Tarar.

The popularity graph of the PPP in terms of National and Punjab Assembly seats in the province has been on the decline since 2002.

Syed Irfan Raza in Islamabad also contributed to this report

Published in Dawn, January 15th, 2024