ISLAMABAD: Five districts of Punjab, which were created last year, will get 13 national and provincial assembly seats among them for the first time under the preliminary delimitation.

The districts are Kot Addu, Taunsa, Wazirabad, Talagang and Murree. Kot Addu district of southern Punjab alone will get two national and three provincial assembly seats. The two NA seats are NA-179 and NA-180, while the provincial assembly constituencies will be PP-276, PP-277 and PP-278.

Wazirabad and Taunsa districts will each get one national and two provincial assembly seats, respectively. Wazirabad will get NA-66, PP-35 and PP-36 while Taunsa will get NA-183, PP-284 and PP-285.

Talagang district, carved out of Chakwal, could not independently qualify for an NA seat and will share one with Chakwal. NA-59 will be called Talagang-cum-Chakwal now. Previously Chakwal had two NA seats. It will now have one independent NA seat. However, Talagang will get one provincial assembly seat, PP-23. PP-22 will be called Chakwal-cum-Talagang.

Likewise, Murree could not qualify to get an NA seat independently, and thus NA-51, identified as Rawalpindi-cum-Murree, will include the entire district of Murree. However, Murree will get a provincial assembly seat, PP-06.

The number of NA seats in Dera Ghazi Khan will come down from four to three and PA seats from eight to six. Muzaffargarh will lose two NA seats bringing down the number of its seats in the lower house from six to four. The number of PA seats in the district will also drop from 12 to eight.

Gujranwala used to have six seats while Hafizabad had one NA seat. Now the two districts will collectively have only five seats. Gujranwala, with a population of 5.95 million, otherwise appeared to be qualifying to get a seventh independent seat. Dera Ghazi Khan will lose one NA and two PA seats.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2023