PTI demands swift allocation of ‘bat’ symbol

ISLAMABAD: A Pakistan Tehreek Insaf spokesman called on the Election Commission of Pakistan on Saturday to allot his party the election symbol of the bat without any further delay.

He accused the entire Election Commission of Pakistan of attempting to erase the PTI from the political scene.

“The PTI is the target of the worst state repression and shameful political engineering going on before the elections. All the evidence is exposing the state’s intentions of historical robbery in the elections,” alleged a spokesman for the PTI in a statement.

He claimed that the country’s most popular political party, supported by more than three-fourth of the eligible population, is being subjected to a nefarious conspiracy like a technical knockout.

The spokesman charged that repeatedly unconstitutional, illegal, and undemocratic tactics were being used for the ouster of founding PTI chairman Imran Khan, who is an illegal prisoner in Adiala Jail, as well as his party from the political process.

The entire country, he contended, was under the control of unconstitutional, illegal, non-representative, and undemocratic governments with the criminal goal of snatching the people’s mandate available to Imran Khan and the PTI, depriving the country of the basic constitutional requirement of elections.

“Despite breaking the party after May 9, imprisoning thousands of innocent workers, including the founder chairman, and the blind and illegal use of state power, the people who insist on supporting Imran Khan and the PTI are a big challenge for the evil planners of the state,” he maintained.

He alleged that the ECP has been entrusted with the central role in the nefarious plan to oust the PTI from elections and politics. He also charged that the chief election commissioner and the members of the commission, in a very controversial manner, tried to erase the PTI from the political page through their biased decisions, unconstitutional and illegal orders, open malice, and shameful discrimination.

“Anti-democratic and non-political quarters, who want to oust the PTI from politics, have given the commission the target of the technical knockout of Imran Khan’s party in frustration. For this nefarious purpose, a series of erasing the political identity of its workers was started by depriving the PTI of the fundamental right of the election symbol of the bat.” The PTI, he claimed, acted on the illegal order of the commission of November 23, despite all reservations, and conducted the elections in a transparent manner under the party constitution before challenging it in the Lahore High Court.

For the first time in the history of the country, he noted, the founder chairman of the country’s largest party, Imran Khan, has voluntarily removed himself from the post despite being appointed chairman by the party for life for the supremacy of democracy and law.

“Instead of handing over the chairmanship of the party to someone in his family, he nominated a capable and loyal worker of the party as a candidate for the post of chairman in the intra-party elections. The party workers expressed their unwavering confidence in this decision by electing Barrister Gohar Ali Khan unopposed as the chairman of the party in a transparent election under the supervision of the independent election commission,” he said.

After the successful completion of the intra-party elections on December 2, he pointed out, all necessary documents, including the results, were submitted to the election commission in accordance with the law.

But even after submitting the results of the intra-party elections submitted through the PTI chairman, he said, the commission’s refusal to give the election symbol for just 60 days before the elections is not less than a serious concern and the worst attempt at pre-election rigging.

“We are strongly pointing out that the commission has neither the legal right to stop the symbol of the bat nor is there any precedent available in history. The nefarious attempt to forcibly grab the bat symbol is a shameful attempt to take away the Constitution, democracy, transparent elections, and the political identity of millions of Pakistanis,” he made it clear.

The Lahore High Court (LHC), he emphasised, should hear Barrister Ali Zafar’s petition against the commission’s November 23, 2023, order and stop the ‘tragic death’ of democracy after the Constitution at the hands of the commission.