ISLAMABAD, March 16: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has decided to allot symbols to political parties at a meeting on March 19 and invited all the political parties to attend it.

“All the political parties which have applied for election symbols for general elections 2013 are requested to send a representative of their party to attend the meeting of the ECP,” said an official announcement here on Saturday.

“If a political party does not attend the meeting of the ECP for allotment of election symbols, the ECP has the right to allot the party a symbol in the light of the preferences shown by that party in its application submitted to the commission for the purpose,” it says.

‘Sun’ and ‘crescent’ — known to be the signs of hope and power — appear to be the most sought-after symbols for the coming general elections.

Till the deadline on Friday for submitting applications for allocation of symbols, 118 of the 227 parties registered with the ECP had met the key requirements for contesting the polls. According to an ECP official, the parties having contested previous elections on a particular symbol will be given preference while allocating the same symbol for the coming general elections. A draw will be held for symbols sought by more parties than one.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz has applied for its traditional symbol ‘tiger’ whereas the Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians wants to get symbol of ‘arrow’.

Another nine parties have included the symbol of ‘arrow’ in their lists, with at least one seeking it as the first choice, followed by ‘tiger’. The other main claimant for the symbol is Naheed Khan, former political secretary to Benazir Bhutto, who has submittedan application to the ECP to get her party registered with the name PPP.

Muttahida Qaumi Movement, PML-Q and Jamaat-i-Islami have asked for their traditional election symbols ‘kite’, ‘bicycle’ and ‘scale’ respectively. Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf (PTI) led by Imran Khan has sought ‘bat’ as its election symbol. Similarly, Awami National Party has applied for ‘lantern’ as its election symbol while Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party and father of country’s nuclear programme Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan’s Tehrik Tahaffuz-i-Pakistan have asked for ‘tree’ and ‘missile’ as election symbols respectively.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf (PTI) on Saturday moved the ECP against the misuse of public money by the PML-N’s Punjab government through its media advertisements in “sheer violation of the ECP’s code of conduct”.

The party through a letter sent to the ECP by Ishaq Khakwani has alleged that the ECP’s directions are being violated by the Punjab government by claiming in an advertisement that Shahbaz Sharif has saved resources of the provincial government in a solid waste management project.