RAWALPINDI: Punjab Senior Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb on Sunday rejected allegations by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) regarding the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly elections, questioning how a government led by the PPP in AJK could manipulate the electoral process against itself.

Talking to the media outside a polling station in Rawalpindi, she disputed the PPP’s stance on the death of a party worker in Muzaffarabad, saying he died due to heart failure and did not suffer any bullet injury.

Accompanied by PML-N Metropolitan President Sardar Naseem Khan, PML-N District President and MNA Malik Abrar and MNA Barrister Daniyal Chaudhry, she said voters wanted development in AJK similar to Punjab and came out in large numbers to support the PML-N. She said the PML-N did not believe in the politics of bullets and vote theft, but in delivering results and winning votes through performance and its political stance.

She said if anyone wanted to win people’s hearts, they should work like Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz, who, according to her, worked hard for development and rights.

She recalled the Charter of Democracy signed between the PPP and the PML-N in 2007, saying its purpose was to prevent democratic processes from being sabotaged.

Pointing out that the PPP was in power in AJK and had administrative machinery in the region, the PML-N leader questioned whether Bilawal’s own government was carrying out rigging against itself.

She remarked that if the PPP’s allegations were accepted as true, the party would have to acknowledge that its own government had rigged the elections against Bilawal.

Responding to PPP Secretary General Nayyar Hussain Bukhari’s press conference, the Punjab senior minister said Mr Bukhari was showing ballot papers stamped with votes for the PML-N.

“This is an election involving thousands of votes. He was showing two stamps on two ballot papers,” she said.

The Punjab minister said empty camps of the PPP and other parties outside polling stations until evening were proof that voters wanted the PML-N, while the PPP was making allegations of rigging.

Published in Dawn, August 3rd, 2026