The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has allotted symbols to the candidates of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) contesting polls as independent candidates after the Supreme Court annulled the Peshawar High Court’s (PHC) January 10 order.
In a late-night decision, the Supreme Court on Saturday upheld the Dec 22 decision of the ECP depriving the PTI of its iconic poll symbol — ‘bat’.
The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) has decided to use its robust social media network to stay in touch with its supporters after the Election Commission stripped it of its electoral symbol. The party has also set up a portal that features its candidates along with their electoral symbols for the polls on February 8.
PTI Social Media Team has created a portal to search for candidate name & symbol. See video below showing a search for “NA1” & the results with candidate name & symbol. We are just waiting for data for each candidate before we go LIVE! #ChallengeAccepted #PrimeMinisterImranKhan pic.twitter.com/BhI4bOfIfJ
— PTI (@PTIofficial) January 14, 2024
In a statement on ‘X’, formerly Twitter, the former ruling party said a portal to search for candidates and their symbols had been created. “See video below showing a search for ‘NA-1’ and the results with candidate name and symbol. We are just waiting for data for each candidate before we go live! #ChallengeAccepted,” the tweet read.
PTI Information Secretary Raoof Hasan said the portal would be fully functional within two days. “There will be two separate portals for the National and provincial assemblies. We will share the links of these portals through social media sites and our voters will be able to identify the national and provincial assembly candidates backed by the PTI for their constituencies,” he said.
Meanwhile, Barrister Gohar Ali Khan, who has been deprived of his post of PTI chairman after Supreme Court judgement, was allotted “teapot” as election symbol while Shaukat Yousafzai’s symbol has been “racket”.
PTI’s Shahryar Afridi will contest election with “bottle” symbol, Shandana Gulzar has been given the symbol of “bowl”.
PTI senior leader Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s children Mehr Bano Qureshi and Zain Hussain Qureshi have been allotted electoral symbols chimta (tongs) for NA-151 and shoe for NA-150 constituencies of Multan, respectively.
Umair Niazi will fight the election with the symbol ‘door’ on Mianwali’s NA-90 seat. Shoaib Shaheen has been given a ‘shoe’ to contest elections in Islamabad’s NA-46 constituency.
‘Piyala’ (bowl) will represent Shandana Gulzar in NA-30 constituency of Peshawar and ‘kettle’ will represent Barrister Gohar Ali Khan in NA-10 constituency of Buner.
