PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) on Tuesday challenged the Election Commission of Pakistan’s declaration of its intra-party polls as unconstitutional and revocation of the ‘bat’ symbol in the Peshawar High Court, and urged the court to suspend the commission’s order forthwith.

The petition has been accepted for hearing today.

The development comes after the electoral watchdog last week voided, for the second time in under than a month, PTI’s internal elections in which Barrister Gohar Ali Khan was elected as the party’s new chairman.

The ECP verdict had come following a first-of-its-kind microscopic examination of the inner workings of a political party and declared the party ineligible to obtain an election symbol to contest the upcoming general elections.

“It is held that PTI has not complied with our directions rendered therein order dated 23rd November 2023 and failed to hold intra-party election in accordance with PTI prevailing Constitution, 2019 and Election Act, 2017, and Election Rules, 2017,” the ECP had said in its 11-page order.

The party had termed the decision part of the “famous London Plan” and a “disgusting and shameful attempt to stop PTI from [participating in the] election”.

It had also claimed that the party would still win the general elections, maintaining that it would appeal the decision at every forum. It asserted that its candidates would indeed contest the polls with the ‘bat’ symbol, come what may.

Today, the PTI challenged the ECP order and urged the court to fix the matter for hearing at the earliest.

According to the petition, the PTI said the ECP order was “without legal authority and jurisdiction”.

The party insisted that the ECP’s proceedings that questioned the PTI’s intra-party polls were “coram non-judice (without jurisdiction) and without lawful authority”.

It urged the court to direct the ECP to publish the results of the PTI’s intra-party polls on its website and restore the symbol of the party.

Following the submission of the petition, Gohar said: “We have requested the court to schedule a hearing for our plea today.”

He asked, “What will happen to the 225 reserved seats if a party is stopped from participating in elections under its designated symbol?”

Gohar emphasised the significance of the matter, stating it impacted 250 million people.

According to him, if a party lost its symbol, it would cease to exist. “We are being denied everything, and a level playing field is far from reality,” he added.