Hafiz Saeed-linked party polls over 30,000 votes in Pakistan by-election but loses NA-77 seat

A by-election was held for the NA-77 seat in Gujranwala district of Pakistan's Punjab province. The candidate of the Pakistan Markazi Muslim League (PMML), a party linked to Hafiz Saeed, the mastermind of the 26/11 attack on Mumbai and one of India's most wanted terrorists, got more than 30,000 votes. The party still failed to win.

The seat fell vacant after the death of sitting MP Mahmood Bashir Virk, after which the election was announced. Mohammad Ibrahim Gurjar contested for the PMML and finished second.

The seat was won by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). Its candidate, Rashid Bashir Virk, won, reportedly with more than 43,000 votes. The party linked to Hafiz Saeed thus got a good number of votes but not enough support to win.

Former prime minister Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Jamaat-e-Islami did not field candidates in the election.

Hafiz Saeed is the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD). He is considered the main conspirator of the terror attack in Mumbai on November 26, 2008, in which 166 innocent people were killed and many others injured. After the attack he came to be counted among India's most wanted terrorists. His activities also strained relations between India and Pakistan.

His political moves have been in the news before. His name was initially associated with a party called the Milli Muslim League. Later, an attempt was made to build influence in politics under the name Pakistan Markazi Muslim League (PMML). The party also fielded candidates in the 2024 general election, but did not win a single seat then.

Questions are now being raised over how a party linked to a person with a terror background got so much support in NA-77, with over 30,000 votes. It has also been said that these votes cannot be taken as the verdict of the people of Pakistan as a whole, because the figures are from a by-election on a single seat.

The PML-N, for its part, has retained its dominance by winning the seat. The party linked to Hafiz Saeed came second, but the win went to the PML-N.