ISLAMABAD: As a major achievement towards holding elections on time, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Thursday notified the new delimitations of national and provincial assemblies’ constituencies.

The notification was issued after the ECP concluded objections over the new boundaries of national and provincial assembly seats.

Establishing new boundaries of the seats was a constitutional requirement following the population census.

Under the 24th Amendment in the Constitution, the parliament allowed ECP to conduct delimitations on the basis of provisional population census results held last year and the new delimitations was the first such exercise after the 2002 elections. However, some political parties still have reservations over the preliminary results population census.

No change has been made in total number of seats for national and provisional assemblies under the new delimitation but the number of National Assembly seats for Punjab has been reduced from 148 to 141.

These NA seats have been allocated to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Islamabad as per their proportionate increase in the population.

Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2018