ECP delaying decision on electoral symbol: PTI

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Core Committee Monday aired serious reservations about the state's ‘ongoing planned attempts to pollute the election environment by creating uneven playing field ahead of the elections, using coercive tactics against PTI leaders and workers’.

The forum also referred to ‘delaying the issuance’ of PTI’s electoral symbol ‘bat’ unnecessarily. In its meeting, the core committee urged that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) should release a detailed written decision regarding the issuance of the election symbol without any further delay after the oral order given on August 30.

The committee pointed out that despite lapse of 87 days of verbal order, the electoral body’s delay in release of the written verdict on the election symbol of ‘bat’ was causing serious concerns and reservations among the people. The committee vowed that if any attempt was made to deprive PTI of its electoral symbol ‘bat’, they along with the nation would strongly resist the move.

The participants made it clear that the solution to the multifaceted crises facing the country lies in the transparent, credible and fair polls wherein all political parties were given opportunities of equal participate.

PTI decided to fully support the sit-in of Balochistan National Party chief Sardar Akhtar Mengal in the federal capital for the recovery of forcibly disappeared persons. The forum demanded the immediate recovery of forcibly disappeared Pakistanis from all parts of the country.

The forum lamented that they have, since May 9, been rearrested again and again from the gates of the prisons on ‘trumped up’ new charges even when bail is granted making a mockery of the justice system. Reiterating the PTI’s stance of protecting the rights of the oppressed Palestinians, the forum demanded immediate stop to the Israeli brutality and genocidal acts in Gaza.