PML-N candidate Malik Munir Iqbal Channar has won the NA-168 Bahawalpur by-election, keeping the National Assembly seat in the hands of the same family that has held it for years after his father, sitting PML-N MP Malik Muhammad Iqbal Channar, passed away earlier this year and triggered the vacancy.
Polling was held on Sunday, September 28, from 8am to 5pm across 292 polling stations in the constituency. According to unofficial results reported after counting, Channar defeated Wali Dad Cheema — son of former federal minister Tariq Bashir Cheema and the main opposition-aligned candidate — by a comfortable margin. The Express Tribune put the tally at 77,688 votes for Channar against 41,260 for Cheema, a margin of roughly 36,400 votes, while Urdu Point reported slightly higher figures of 79,306 and 42,623 votes respectively. Both outlets stressed the numbers were still unofficial at the time of reporting, which explains the gap; the Election Commission has yet to issue a final, certified count.
| Candidate | Party | Votes (unofficial) |
|---|---|---|
| Malik Munir Iqbal Channar | PML-N | 77,688 – 79,306 |
| Wali Dad Cheema | PML-Q-aligned | 41,260 – 42,623 |
The campaign was not entirely peaceful — three people were injured in campaign-related violence on September 12 — but polling day itself passed off without major incident, according to local reporting.
Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, PML-N’s vice-president, welcomed the result as a vote of confidence in the party’s Bahawalpur-region development work. Senior Provincial Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb credited the win to programmes such as the Green Bus service, the Suthra Punjab cleanliness drive, an estimated 50,000 kilometres of road works, Clinics on Wheels, free medicines, field hospitals and free school meals under the provincial government.
“Today, his son’s victory is reflective of the same continuity of that loyalty and public service,” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said, referring to the Channar family’s decades-long association with the PML-N.
NA-168 has effectively become a Channar family seat in Bahawalpur politics, and Sunday’s result extends that run into a new generation. The by-election adds to a string of recent by-polls PML-N has contested and won in its traditional strongholds, coming at a time when the ruling party is also navigating a tense stand-off with PTI over the opposition party’s planned October 4 march on Islamabad.
Our Opinion
A 36,000-plus vote margin in a low-turnout by-election says more about incumbency and machine politics in Punjab than it does about any broader shift in public mood; seats like NA-168, held by the same family across successive Assemblies, are won on local patronage networks and constituency service as much as on party manifestos — which is worth remembering before either PML-N or its rivals read too much national meaning into a single Bahawalpur result.
