ISLAMABAD: Former provincial minister Taimur Saleem Jhagra of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party has stated that the circumstances seen during the general elections on February 8, 2024, have been repeated in the Haripur by-elections of 2025.
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, Jhagra said that PTI-backed candidate Shehrnaz Umar Ayub secured 149,782 votes, while PML-N’s Babar Nawaz received 124,686 votes. According to him, PTI had a clear lead of around 25,000 votes.
He alleged that Forms 45, 46, and 47 have still not been issued or uploaded on the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) website. Jhagra accused ECP staff of interfering in the results and claimed that original votes were replaced with “fake votes” through Form 47, turning PTI’s lead into a defeat.
He further stated that the District Returning Officer (DRO) in Haripur was an ECP employee and that strict restrictions were imposed around data-entry areas, preventing anyone from observing the process. The real results were altered across polling stations, converting Shehrnaz Umar Ayub’s victory into a loss, he alleged.
Jhagra also criticized the ECP, claiming billions of rupees were being wasted in the name of elections. He added that PTI could not run an effective campaign in Lahore, whereas PML-N and Captain Safdar were freely conducting theirs.
He noted that voter turnout in Haripur exceeded ten percent.
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