With polls merely three weeks away, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has yet to issue the final list of candidates for the February 8 general elections.

On Dec 15, the electoral watchdog issued the poll schedule, detailing the step-by-step procedures leading up to the poll day along with their dates.

As per the schedule, the ECP was to issue its final allocation of electoral symbols to candidates on Jan 13.

However, four days after the passage of the due date for the issuance of symbols, the commission has yet to issue the final list of candidates.

When contacted by Dawn.com, ECP spokesperson Syed Nadeem Haider said that cases pertaining to the allocation of electoral symbols were currently being heard in court, leading to a delay in issuance of the final lists.

He said that the ECP would release the list as soon as the pending court cases were resolved.

The electoral watchdog had on Tuesday warned that the polls might have to be delayed if orders keep coming for changing the election symbols already allocated to candidates.

Without naming any specific court, the ECP had pointed out that election symbols were being changed through various forums.

Following the allotment of election symbols, the ECP said it had already ordered the printing of ballot papers to the three printing corporations and the printing work had started a day before.

“If the process of changing the election symbols continues in the same way, there is a fear of election delay, because the ballot papers will have to be reprinted for which time is already limited and on the other hand, the special paper available for the ballot papers will also be lost,” it had reasoned.

The commission had noted that there was over 33 per cent increase in the number of candidates for the upcoming general elections, as a total of 18,059 are in the run as compared to 11,700 candidates who contested the 2018 polls.

The ECP statement came after PPP Chai­r­­man Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari alleged that returning officers had allotted the wrong electoral symbols to his party’s candidates in Punjab “under pressure from the PML-N”.

A similar concern was raised by the party’s Punjab leader Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmed who had alleged that the ECP had made the forthcoming polls controversial by denying the party’s electoral symbol to seven of its candidates.

Likewise, several independent candidates belonging to the PTI had challenged the decision of the returning officers to issue different election symbols to them, and made the ECP, returning officers (ROs) and district returning officers (DROs) respondents in the petition

In the petition before the Peshawar High Court, former federal minister Shehryar Afridi, who is contesting elections on NA-35 Kohat, had petitioned the court against the allocation of the election symbol “bottle”.