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• Challenges govt to judicially supervised audit of 2018, 2024 elections
• Demands SC-monitored probe into ‘massive irregularities’ in BISP
ISLAMABAD: The main opposition PTI on Wednesday rejected Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s recent remarks in the National Assembly on the legitimacy of the 2018 and 2024 general elections, terming them a “tacit admission” that the February 2024 polls were marred by large-scale rigging.
“In a remarkable display of selective memory and political acrobatics, Shehbaz Sharif attempted to equate the current ‘Form 47 regime’ with the 2018 elections, claiming that if one was legitimate, so is the other. PTI views this not as a defence but as a tacit admission that the February 2024 elections witnessed one of the most brazen thefts of the people’s mandate in the nation’s history,” PTI Secretary Information Sheikh Waqas Akram said.
“If Shehbaz Sharif truly believes his own rhetoric, why does his government recoil at the mere suggestion of an independent examination of the 2024 results? The answer lies in the fragile foundation of Form 47 itself,” he said.
Sheikh Waqas issued what he described as a direct and open challenge to the government to conduct a full, transparent and judicially supervised audit of both the 2018 and 2024 elections so that the people of Pakistan and the international community could determine whose claim to public trust was genuine.
Referring to the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), he expressed profound outrage over the Auditor General of Pakistan’s audit report for the fiscal year 2024-25, which, he claimed, had exposed massive irregularities and financial mismanagement in the programme.
He demanded an immediate Supreme Court-monitored judicial inquiry into the alleged BISP scandal, recovery of all misappropriated funds, strict legal action against those involved, and the suspension and criminal prosecution of BISP officials and IT personnel allegedly responsible for data tampering.
Commenting on the situation in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Sheikh Waqas expressed concern over what he described as the rapidly deteriorating political and administrative environment in the region.
Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2026
