ISLAMABAD: The Pakis­tan Peoples Party-Parlia­mentarians (PPP-P) has said that any delimitation of constituencies for local government (LG) elections on the basis of provisional census results will be unconstitutional.

In a letter to Chief Elec­tion Commissioner Sikan­dar Sultan Raja, in-charge of PPP election cell Taj Haider has pointed out that the 24th Amendment of the Consti­tution limited the use of the provisional figures to the general elections of 2018 and subsequent by-polls.

He said the amendment reads: “Provided that for purposes of the next general elections to be held in 2018 and by-elections related thereto, the allocations shall be made on the basis of provisional results of the 2017 Census which shall be published by the Federal Government.”

Mr Haider said the figures obtained in the Census 2017 were highly controversial since the Statistic Division had conducted the census on de jure basis which had excluded migrants from other provinces from the population of the province of their current residence. This method had substantially reduced the population of Sindh, he added.

Mr Haider said at the time of the passing of the 24th Amendment, he was PPP parliamentary leader in the Senate. Many rounds of negotiations were held on the issue and the amendment could only be passed when an agreement was reached at a meeting of parliamentary leaders of all political parties in the Senate, presided over by the then prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.

The PPP leader has also appended a copy of that agreement with the letter for reference.

Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2020