Karachi, August 03, 2024: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Yasmin Rashid’s counsel has alleged that 74,000 fraudulent votes were cast in NA-130 to ensure the victory of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Nawaz Sharif.
During a press conference, former Attorney General of Punjab and Yasmin Rashid’s counsel, Ahmed Owais, claimed that electoral fraud took place on February 8 in NA-130 (Lahore).
“Around 74,000 more votes were cast than the total number of voters to ensure Nawaz Sharif’s victory,” he stated. Owais mentioned that the final results showed a significant increase in Nawaz Sharif’s vote count from the majority of polling stations.
Owais also said that following the May 9 riots, Yasmin Rashid was arrested in a ‘fabricated’ case. “If she (Yasmin Rashid) was involved, she would have been punished by now, but the government does not have any evidence against her,” he added.
It is worth noting that Nawaz Sharif won the seat by securing 179,310 votes against PTI-backed Dr. Yasmin Rashid, who received 104,485 votes in the general elections held on February 8.
Yasmin Rashid has challenged Nawaz’s victory in the Election Commission of Pakistan as well as the Lahore High Court.
Earlier, a civil society organization, PATTAN, reported that Lahore’s NA-130 constituency, where PML-N president Nawaz Sharif defeated PTI’s Yasmin Rashid in the 2024 general elections, likely experienced the ‘worst form of rigging’ in Punjab’s electoral history. According to PATTAN, the National Assembly constituency NA-130 saw voter turnout between 90 percent and 102 percent on many Form-45s, while provincial assembly seats had about 40 percent turnout.
The organization claimed that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) appeared to have increased Nawaz Sharif’s share of votes on Forms-45, leading election officials to artificially inflate overall turnout figures at the same polling stations, and eventually prepare fake Form-47s.
