KARACHI, Aug 4: The All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA) has demanded that the number of reserved seats for minorities in the assemblies be increased, and that they also be given due representation in the senate.

Speaking at a meeting on Sunday, the Sindh chief of the APMA and former minority member of the Sindh Assembly, Saleem Khursheed Khokhar, said that though the government (keeping in view the increase in population) has enhanced the number of general seats in the National Assembly from 200 to 332, and the reserved seats for minorities have been restored, they have been kept at the same number of 10 seats.

Terming it as discrimination towards the minority communities, he said that it was unlikely that only the population of the majority community (Muslims) has increased over the years, while the population of the minorities had not increased accordingly.

He also demanded that figures of all the censuses held since 1980 for the majority as well as minority communities be made public, so that people could see for themselves if the population of the minorities had also increased in the same proportion as that of the majority.

Pointing out that there was no representation of the minorities in the upper house of the parliament — the senate — the leader demanded that the minorities be given due representation in the senate according to their population.

He said that the government, by restoring the joint electorate system, had brought back the minorities into the mainstream of national politics, adding that now the government should also increase the number of reserved seats in the parliament and give them representation in the senate.