PPP seeks ‘sword’ symbol to contest general elections

KARACHI: Pakistan People’s Party has decided to contest upcoming elections with a symbol of ‘sword’, instead of its existing one of ‘arrow’.

The party has submitted a request to the Election Commission of Pakistan for replacing the symbol in this election.

PPP said the application for getting the symbol of sword was submitted to the ECP so that no other could claim this symbol as it was connected traditionally with the PPP as it contested the elections of 1970 and 1977 under the leadership of its founding Chairman Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Later, the election commission had removed the sword from the symbol list and denied the PPP to contest on its symbol of sword and Shaheed Benazir Bhutto opted for ‘Arrow’ for contesting the election and since then the PPP was contesting the elections with the symbol of ‘arrow.’

Sword was among the three symbols that were deleted from the ECP’s list of election symbols after General Ziaul Haq imposed martial law in the country after the 1977 general elections. The other two deleted symbols were ‘plough’ and ‘scale’.

Secretary General PPP Nayyar Bukhari, according to reports, would contest his party’s case in the ECP. The election commission has a list of around 330 approved symbols by the President of Pakistan. The ones left after being allocated to political parties would be given to independent candidates.

It’s nearly after 40 years that the PPP will contest the election with the sword symbol.