The ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz slammed the door on Hafiz Saeed's political ambitions in Punjab on Monday, retaining the NA-77 parliamentary seat in Gujranwala by more than 13,000 votes.
PML-N candidate Rashid Bashir Virk clinched victory with over 43,000 ballots. His primary challenger, Muhammad Ibrahim Gujjar of the Saeed-backed Pakistan Markazi Muslim League, bagged upwards of 30,000 votes before crying foul. The seat fell vacant following the death of sitting lawmaker Mehmood Bashir Virk. Major opposition groups—including Imran Khan's jailed Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, the Pakistan Peoples Party, and Jamaat-e-Islami—sat out the contest entirely, leaving the field open to a direct ideological duel.
The ballot box proved decisive.
| Candidate | Party Affiliation | Votes Polled | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rashid Bashir Virk | Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) | 43,000+ | Declared Winner |
| Muhammad Ibrahim Gujjar | Pakistan Markazi Muslim League (PMML) | 30,000+ | Defeated |
| Opposition Parties (AirNews, PPP, JI) | Boycotted / Uncontested | 0 | Did Not Run |
Sunday's vote in Gujranwala, roughly 80 kilometres from Lahore, exposed the persistent push by Saeed's apparatus to scrub its terror credentials through electoral politics. Saeed founded both Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the terror groups responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks. When Pakistani authorities clamped down on his earlier vehicle, the Milli Muslim League, the PMML stepped into the breach with open backing from the state's security establishment.
Yet mainstream voters resisted the pivot. The PMML ran dozens of candidates across Pakistan during the 2024 general elections and failed to secure a single parliamentary constituency. Gujjar's 30,000-vote showing in NA-77 marked the front's strongest finish to date, but it still fell short of breaking into the National Assembly.
Temperatures spiked once polling booths shuttered. The Election Commission reported sparse voter turnout across the semi-industrial constituency, while residents in one village boycotted the exercise outright. PMML leaders summarily rejected the tally, accusing the ruling PML-N of deploying state machinery to orchestrate systematic ballot rigging.
Election monitors took immediate notice of irregularities. The Election Commission issued formal notices seeking explanations from five PML-N women lawmakers accused of breaching the official code of conduct during Sunday's polling. Official scrutiny now shifts to the statutory hearings on those code violations before the Election Commission formalizes the gazette notification for Virk's victory.