{"id":48679,"date":"2024-01-16T18:12:55","date_gmt":"2024-01-16T18:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/ecp-directs-officials-to-refrain-from-changing-electoral-symbols-amid-printing-of-ballot-papers\/"},"modified":"2024-01-16T18:12:55","modified_gmt":"2024-01-16T18:12:55","slug":"ecp-directs-officials-to-refrain-from-changing-electoral-symbols-amid-printing-of-ballot-papers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/ecp-directs-officials-to-refrain-from-changing-electoral-symbols-amid-printing-of-ballot-papers\/","title":{"rendered":"ECP directs officials to refrain from changing electoral symbols amid printing of ballot papers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\n<p>The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Tuesday directed officials overseeing poll management to avoid altering candidates\u2019 electoral symbols since the printing of ballot papers is in progress.<\/p>\n<p>The ECP issued directives to returning officers, district returning officers, and other election officials a day after allegations from political parties \u2014 PPP and PTI \u2014 accusing the electoral watchdog of either denying or assigning wrong symbols to their candidates.<\/p>\n<p>PPP Chai\u00adr\u00ad\u00adman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari had on Monday <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1806202\/bilawal-sees-pml-ns-hand-in-misallocation-of-symbols\">clai\u00admed<\/a> that returning officers had allotted the wrong electoral symbols to his party\u2019s candidates in Pun\u00adjab \u201cunder pressure from PML-N\u201d.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media  sm:w-1\/2  w-full  media--right  media--embed  media--uneven\">\n<p>    <iframe class=\"nk-iframe\" onload=\"setInterval(()=&gt;{try{this.style.height=this.contentWindow.document.body.scrollHeight+'px';}catch{}}, 100)\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"height:400px;position:relative\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/card\/1804600\" sandbox=\"allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups allow-modals allow-forms\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The PPP leader vowed to take the matter to the election commission and courts, adding that the PML-N wanted to contest elections \u201cby keeping its opponents out of the ground\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>A similar concern was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1806127\/polls-made-controversial-as-seven-ppp-candidates-denied-arrow\">raised<\/a> by the party\u2019s Punjab leader Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmed who alleged that the ECP had made the forthcoming polls controversial by denying the party\u2019s electoral symbol to seven of its candidates.<\/p>\n<p>Likewise, several independent candidates belonging to the PTI had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1806149\/pti-leaders-challenge-poll-symbols-in-phc\">challenged<\/a> 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<\/p>\n<p>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 \u2018bottle\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Today, the ECP issued a statement, asking RO, DROs and election officials to refrain from changing symbols for poll aspirants.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll provincial election commissioners, ROs, and DROs have been directed to refrain from altering electoral symbols at this stage. If changes are necessary, seek permission from the ECP, as the printing of ballot papers has begun and changing symbols may not be possible,\u201d the electoral watchdog said in a notification.<\/p>\n<p>The ECP said the print had begun on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>In a later statement shared on social media platform X, the ECP spokesperson said that a proposal was being considered where the only available recourse would be to postpone the election in those constituencies where the process of altering electoral symbols did not cease.<\/p>\n<p>The spokesperson emphasised the time constraint, stating that the ECP lacked sufficient time to reprint ballot papers should the ongoing process of changing electoral symbols persist.<\/p>\n<p>The ECP had on Dec 15 <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"link--external\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ECP_Pakistan\/status\/1735728966852546777\">issued<\/a> schedule for general elections, underlining that election symbols will be allotted to political parties on Jan 13 with polls set for Feb 8.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Tuesday directed officials overseeing poll management to avoid altering candidates\u2019 electoral symbols since the printing of ballot papers is in progress. The ECP issued directives to returning officers, district returning officers, and other election officials a day after allegations from political parties \u2014 PPP and PTI \u2014 accusing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2024\/01\/162117246752677.png?r=211831","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}