Lahore election court declared Yasmin Rashid’s election petition against Nawaz Sharif in NA-130 non-maintainable
Dr. Yasmín Rashid. PHOTO: APP/FILE
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Dr Yasmin Rashid has decided to approach the court against the election tribunal’s decision in the NA-130 case after consulting with her legal team in jail.
According to his lawyer, Rana Mudassar Umar, Dr Rashid has ordered him to immediately challenge the court’s verdict. He said an application for a certified copy of the decision has already been filed and a petition will be filed in court as soon as the copy is received.
Rana Mudassar Umar further maintained that the election tribunal did not properly evaluate the facts of the case and dismissed Dr Rashid’s election petition citing “technical reasons”.
A day earlier, an election court upheld the Election Commission of Pakistan’s notification declaring Nawaz Sharif the winner in Lahore’s NA-130, dismissing a challenge filed by the PTI leader. The decision ends their attempt to overturn Sharif’s victory in the February 2024 general elections in the constituency, also known as NA-130 (Lahore-XIV).
The court, headed by Justice Rana Zahid Mahmood, rejected Dr Rashid’s plea on technical grounds. The ruling means that the official result reported by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) will remain in force. According to the published results of the February 8, 2024 elections, the three-time prime minister got 179,310 votes in NA-130, while Dr. Rashid got 104,485.
Dr Rashid had addressed the court in the weeks after the election, arguing through her lawyers that the ECP did not follow proper procedure when notifying Sharif’s victory. He alleged that the result had been manipulated in Sharif’s favor and requested that the notification be quashed.
Elections 2024
The February 8, 2024 general election was followed by weeks of disputes and competing claims over the results in multiple constituencies, with PTI-backed candidates alleging that the results were altered during consolidation and notification.
PTI leaders publicly described the post-election process as a “mandate” issue, arguing that the results should reflect polling station-level documentation (Form-45) rather than consolidated figures released later, a controversy that dominated much of the immediate post-election political and legal fallout.
Those challenges were largely brought to the electoral tribunal system, even as petitioners continued to seek relief through different forums. Months after the vote, a large majority of election petitions were still awaiting decisions, citing monitoring by the free and fair electoral network which showed that only a small proportion of disputes had been decided and that several courts had not resolved any cases during that period.
NA-130 was among the congressional districts repeatedly cited in the broader debate. Before the election, Rashid’s candidacy went through litigation, and an election appeals court allowed him to run against Sharif.
After the results, she filed an appeal challenging Sharif’s victory notification before the Lahore High Court election tribunal, while PTI figures also claimed in public briefings that she had been leading NA-130 before Sharif was declared the winner.
