News Desk:
ISLAMABAD: The Council of Common Interests (CCI) approved the census 2023 results. This was revealed by the Federal Minister for Law, Nazeer Ahmed Tarar while talking to reporters on Saturday evening.
The results of the new census were “unanimously” approved at the CCI meeting today, he said.
The meeting was held in Islamabad, four days after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif already revealed during an interview that elections would be held on the basis of the latest census.
ECP expresses its inability to hold general elections
On the other hand, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) already expressed its inability to hold general polls on the basis of the latest census results within the stipulated time as the electoral watchdog will now have to conduct a fresh delimitation of constituencies.
Meanwhile, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM) and PPP — two of the government’s allies in the Centre — have expressed reservations about the new census. Yesterday, PPP senators in the upper house of Parliament also termed the decision to hold the elections on the basis of the new census a tactic to delay the polls.
Administrative units be allotted seats on the basis of population
When Tarar was asked about the matter, he defended the PML-N-led government’s decision by citing Article 51 of the Constitution, which seats that National Assembly (NA) seats should be allocated to administrative units “on the basis of population in accordance with the last preceding census officially published”.
Tarar also referred to a 2021 CCI decision to hold the next elections on the basis of the 2023 census as “provinces had reservations about the old (2017) census”.
The law minister said it was now up to the ECP to set begin and complete the delimitation of constituencies on the basis of the new population count.
