MQM-P leader Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui has claimed that the results of the 2024 general elections in Karachi were based on actual votes polled as opposed to the winner being already decided before the polls, which he said was the case in 2018 when his party had lost a bulk of the seats to rivals PTI.

While speaking to Geo News, Siddiqui, in response to a question regarding his party’s success being starkly different in both the elections, said that the votes his party received in the 2018 elections were not counted — something he said was not the case in 2024.

He claimed that in 2018 a member of his party had won the seat in the recounting, but the decision to “bring someone else into the government was already taken”.

“People who had won were surprised how they had won,” he said.