Fact-check: Did the RO Pakpattan quit under pressure?
Geo Fact Check reached out to all seven ROs named on ECP’s website. They all confirmed that they had not handed in any resignation
Updated Thursday Feb 15 2024
Some Pakistani social media users claim that a returning officer (RO) in a constituency in Punjab’s Pakpattan district has resigned after the general election, alleging that he was being forced to manipulate the poll results.
The claim is false. No RO from Pakpattan has quit, as of February 13.
Claim
"Breaking news, RO Pakpattan has resigned," wrote a user on X, formerly Twitter, "He has said that he cannot do such a big injustice [in the election results]."
The post was reposted 169 times and liked 690 times, at the time of writing. While it has been viewed over 10,000 times.
Another online user alleged that the RO said he could not "manipulate poll results" as the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-backed independent candidate had won with a big margin in the constituency of Pakpattan.
A similar text was shared here, here and here.
Fact
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) appointed seven ROs on December 11, for the five provincial and two national assembly constituencies of Punjab’s Pakpattan district.
None have quit to date.
There were a total of seven constituencies in the Pakpattan district up for grabs on February 8, five province assembly seats (PP-193, PP-194, PP-195, PP-196 and PP-197) and two national assembly seats (NA-139 and NA-140).
According to the ECP's website, the following were the ROs named for Pakpattan.
| Sr# | Constituency | Returning officer |
| 1 | NA-139 Pakpattan-I | Rana Muhammad Umar |
| 2 | NA-140 Pakpattan-II | Malik Muhammad Afzal |
| Sr# | Constituency | Returning officer |
| 1 | PP-193 Pakpattan-I | Muhammad Naeem Bashir |
| 2 | PP-194 Pakpattan-II | Muhammad Anwar-ul-Haq Badar |
| 3 | PP-195 Pakpattan-II | Abdul Majeed Khan |
| 4 | PP-196 Pakpattan-IV | Malik Muhammad Afzal |
| 5 | PP-197 Pakpattan-V | Bilal Shaukat |
Geo Fact Check reached out to all seven ROs named on the ECP’s website. They all confirmed that they had not handed in any resignation.
It is important to mention here that for PP-196, the ECP had replaced RO Muhammad Yasin with Muhammad Afzal Khan on February 1, much before the polls were held.
Geo Fact Check also spoke to Muhammad Yasin to ask if he had quit. Yasin said he was replaced and notified through WhatsApp at night. "So I left my charge," he added.
With additional reporting by Nadia Khalid.
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