LAHORE: The PPP has criticised the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for, what it says, making the forthcoming polls controversial by denying the party’s electoral symbol to seven of its candidates in Punjab as the PPP-P election cell in-charge writes a second letter to the ECP, expressing reservations on the polling process.

“The election 2024 is being made controversial even before the conduct of the electoral exercise. Why is the election commission creating such a situation that gives rise to the fears that the polls may not be held in a free and fair manner?” asked senior PPP leader Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmed.

Flanked by Zulfikar Ali Badr, Faiza Malik, Neelam Jabbar and others, he told a press conference here on Monday that seven PPP candidates had not been allotted party election symbol ‘arrow’ though they had submitted party tickets to their respective returning officers well in time.

Three of these candidates are running for the National Assembly seats and four for Punjab Assembly. These candidates were allotted different election symbols as independents, regretted Chaudhry Manzoor, who is also a PPP candidate for a National Assembly seat from Kasur.

Party writes to ECP, expressing reservations about polling process

He said the party’s secretary general had immediately written to the ECP as soon as the issue came to his notice but the election watchdog had not responded to it.

Recalling that the electoral exercises in 2013 and 2018 had become controversial for various reasons, Manzoor said the 2024 polls were also being made non-transparent as ‘rigging’ of the election process had begun by depriving the seven PPP candidates of their party’s election symbol.

Demanding the ECP to act immediately and direct the ROs to allot party symbols to the genuine candidates, he said the party tickets had been issued with the signatures of the party’s secretary general and the ROs were bound to allot them the party symbol. But, he lamented, some candidates had been made independent by not being allotted the party symbol and feared that many more such cases could surface.

Manzoor Ahmed clarified that the PPP nominees were in the electoral arena from the platform of the PPP-P under an agreement between the two parties and ‘arrow’ was the election symbol of the latter.

He identified the candidates as Zulfiqar Ali Khan (NA-58, Chakwal), Hassan Sardar (NA-59, Talagang), Chaudhry Atif (NA-122, Lahore), Chaudhry Naushad (PP-20, Chakwal), Raja Amjad Noor (PP-21, Chakwal), Mujahid Islam (PP-119, Toba Tek Singh), and Fayyaz Bhatti (PP-163, Lahore) as those who have been denied the electoral symbol of ‘arrow’.

He threatened that if the ECP did not act, the party would take to the streets besides moving a court of law.

Chaudhry Manzoor alleged that all political parties were not being provided a level-playing field as local holiday in educational institutions was declared in Okara to facilitate the PML-N’s election rally in the town. He demanded the ECP take notice of this facilitation by the district administration.

Meanwhile, PPP-P central election cell in-charge Senator Taj Haider has written a second complaint to the ECP expressing reservations on the fairness of the polling process so far.

In his letter to the chief election commissioner (CEC), Senator Haider referred to Section 66 of the Election Act 2017 under which a candidate has to submit a declaration about his affiliation with a particular party and a certificate from the political party concerned, showing that he/she is the bona fide nominee for certain constituency. But, he said, the ROs were not accepting these documents as sufficient evidence to consider a candidate for the election symbol of the party concerned and urged the CEC to take notice of it and direct the ROs to abide by the law.

“As independent candidates are often elected taking advantage of parochial, racial, tribal, sectarian and provincial prejudices among our citizens; therefore, it is the duty of the state to discourage these and similar prejudices under Article 33 of the Constitution and instead encourage citizens to vote for a party on the basis of its policy, performance and election manifesto.”

Taj Haider said that pushing candidates duly affiliated with a party to run as independents despite having valid tickets of the party would run contrary to the intentions of the Article 33.

Published in Dawn, January 16th, 2024