PESHAWAR: Pakistan Peoples Party has urged the Election Commission of Pakistan to start work on the delimitation in parts of Federally Administered Tribal Areas to ensure participation of the tribal people in the next general elections so that they could raise voice for their rights in the assemblies.

It also expressed concern over the slashing of National Assembly seats for Fata from 12 to seven and said that the government should revise the population figures so that the number of seats could be decided on the basis of population.

The demand was raised by PPP provincial president Mohammad Humayun Khan in a statement here on Friday. He said that after the passage of Fata-KP merger bill from the National Assembly and Senate it was sure that the provincial assembly would also endorse it as most of the political parties supported the merger.

The PPP leader said that it was time that the people would feel a change to get access to courts and basic facilities of life. He said that the main point was scrapping of the FCR which had made lives of the masses miserable.

He said that the facilities like education, healthcare, drinking water and security of life were among basic rights of every citizen and thus the Fata region should be given full attention to bring it at par with any of the developed parts of the country to remove the sense of deprivation among the residents.

Mr Humayun said that the credit for renaming the KP province also went to the PPP which had accepted a longstanding demand of the people. He said that now Fata would be able to get its due share in NFC award and other development funds as part of the provincial ADP. He said that PPP would continue to raise voice for rights of the people in and outside the assemblies.

Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2018