Imran Khan’s party to challenge ‘flawed’ ECP verdict on intra-party polls, electoral symbol in high court

Islamabad: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party on Monday said that it will challenge the election commission’s decision to declare its intra-party polls as unconstitutional and revoke the iconic cricket bat’ symbol in the Peshawar High Court.

A five-member panel of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Friday rejected the organisational elections of Khan’s party and its plea to have a cricket bat as the electoral symbol for the general elections.

PTI lawyer and central information secretary Mohammad Muazzam Butt on Monday said the party had decided to approach the Peshawar High Court and file a writ petition on December 26, Dawn newspaper reported.

He said the party leadership would file the case and claimed the ECP’s verdict was a “legally flawed” decision.

He added the commission had failed to serve justice in its order. The electoral watchdog declared void for the second time in less than a month the PTI’s internal elections in which Barrister Gohar Ali Khan was elected as the party’s new chairman. With this decision, Gohar Khan, a close aide of Khan, 71, lost his position as chairman of PTI, days after his appointment.

Khan, a former iconic international cricketer, is synonymous with the cricket bat. He is lodged in Adiala Jail at Rawalpindi facing multiple cases.

The ECP declared the party ineligible to obtain an election symbol to contest the upcoming general elections on February 8 next year.

“It is held that PTI has not complied with our directions rendered therein order dated November 23 and failed to hold intra-party election following PTI prevailing Constitution, 2019 and Election Act, 2017, and Election Rules, 2017,” the poll body had said in its 11-page order.