By-polls were held on 21 national and provincial seats amid allegations of “record rigging” made by PTI leaders and temporary suspension of cellular services in specific districts of Punjab and Balochistan.
According to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), by-elections were held on five vacant seats of the National Assembly, 12 of the Punjab Assembly, and two each of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan legislatures.
Separately, re-polling in all constituencies of Balochistan’s PB-50 (Qila Abdullah) was also held today.Polling began at 8am and concluded at 5pm, following which the vote counting began, with results awaited.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) had announced a day earlier that “cellular services will be temporarily suspended in specific districts of Punjab and Balochistan during the by-elections” on April 21 (today) and 22 (Monday).
It said the decision had been taken on the directives of the interior ministry to “safeguard the integrity and security of the electoral process”.It should be mentioned that mobile and internet services were also shut down during the February 8 general elections. Meanwhile, access to social media platform X has been disrupted since Feb 17 — when the former Rawalpindi commissioner accused the chief election commissioner and chief justice of Pakistan of being involved in rigging.
From the outset of polling, PTI claimed that the process was rigged, saying that “stuffed ballot boxes” were found in PP-32 Gujarat.PTI President Parvez Elahi’s son Moonis Elahi said boxes had been stuffed before polling even started in Gujarat, adding that the Malkowal polling station had been closed so further ballot boxes could be stuffed.
PTI leader Hammad Azhar claimed that complete booklets of “fake votes” were found in Gujarat.“They didn’t even bother to separate individual voter slips from its book to make it look genuine,” he said in a post on X.In a separate post, he accused a “section of the media” of “running fake results” on TV.
