PTI lawyer files petition against allotment of ‘book’ as election symbol

PESHAWAR: A Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lawyer from Kohat on Friday filed a petition with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) with the plea that ‘book’ as an election symbol should not be allotted to any party.

“I along with Mudassir Jan Advocate have filed a petition with the Election Commission of Pakistan not to allot book as symbol to any political party. It would deny other parties an opportunity of fair competition as the one who will contest the elections on the symbol of book will play upon the religious sentiments of the general public,” Khurram Zeeshan of the Insaf Lawyers Wing told The News.

Khurram Zeeshan has applied for the PTI ticket to contest election for provincial assembly constituency, PK-82 Kohat.

“Book is a symbol which has many connotations and the most prevalent amongst those is that people relate it with the holy Quran which is obviously not the intent of the issuing authority,” the lawyer said in the petition filed with ECP in Islamabad on Friday. The Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and the alliance of five religio-political parties, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), have contested polls with book as their election symbol in the past.

The MMA was revived after Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) parted ways with the PTI after serving as part of the coalition government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for almost five years and JUI-F decided to quit its alliance with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) as part of the federal government.

The MMA is likely to pose threat to the mainstream political parties, particularly the PTI in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.The MMA ruled the province for five years when it won the majority of seats in the 2002 general election.

“Exploiting peoples’ religious sensitivities on the basis of election symbol and using it to their advantage in election campaign leaves the opponent parties with very little choice to woo the voters,” the lawyer stated in the petition. He added the problem was very obvious in rural areas where illiteracy was high.

“Our concern is that we will again be at disadvantage if ‘book’ is included in allotted symbols. This will deny us equal opportunity and level playing field in the upcoming general election and may thus unduly/unjustly influence the outcome. This is a violation of our fundamental rights to which we object,” Khurram Zeeshan argued in his petition. “In light of the above, it is requested that ‘book’ as a party symbol may please be removed from the list and not allotted to any political party as it would deny us the opportunity of fair competition,” the petition added.