ISLAMABAD: The former ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Thursday lambasted the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) over taking a U-turn on its earlier verbal order of allotting “bat” symbol to the party, saying the much-anticipated decision was an apt reflection of the total biased attitude of top electoral watchdog towards the country’s largest political party.
The reaction from PTI comes after the ECP ordered the party to hold intra-party elections within twenty days or be ready to lose the bat election symbol.
The PTI spokesman Raoof Hasan said that the ECP’s biased ruling has once again exposed those who are moving from pillar to post to keep the country’s most popular leader Imran Khan out of upcoming general elections.
He said that the party would take legal action against the ECP after consulting its legal team, as such a biased decision on the part of the ECP is nothing but to weaken the most popular political party through such tactics.
“Today’s ruling of the ECP is a brazen violation of justice,” he regretted.
He lamented that ECP kept delaying the intra-party election issue despite numerous applications by the party to hear the matter on priority which shows the people who are calling the shots had some hidden agenda behind today’s ruling.
He recalled the PTI leaders’ meetings with Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikander Sultan Raja during which he kept assuring them that things would be decided on merit but he had to eat his own words to please those who rule the roost.
He maintained that the party would not compromise on the bat symbol as it always belonged to PTI and will remain so, adding the party will go to any extent to retain the symbol.
At the same time, he warned those building castles in the air to remove Imran Khan as PTI chairman, saying Imran Khan is and will remain chairman of the party and no one can replace him ever.
“If you think you can remove him [Imran Khan] as party chairman those cheap tactics, you are living in a fool’s paradise,” he declared.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023