LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Friday set aside the delimitation of two adjoining provincial constituencies of Gujranwala and Wazirabad with a direction to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to review the same.

Advocate Senator Azam Nazir Tarar appeared on behalf of the petitioners and argued that the Election Act, 2017, says the maximum difference between populations of two adjacent constituencies should not be more than 10 per cent.

Whereas, he said, the difference between the populations of PP-35 (Wazirabad) and PP-59 (Gujranwala) had been marked over 22 per cent in the new delimitation conducted by the ECP.

He said the ECP gave no valid reason for this massive difference in the population of the constituencies. He pointed out that the new delimitation changed the original status of the constituencies. He argued that district boundaries can be violated to accommodate the needs of the voters of a constituency.

Justice Ali Baqar Najafi set aside the impugned delimitation of the two constituencies and directed the ECP to decide the same afresh after considering objections of the petitioners before the announcement of the election schedule.

The judge did not set aside the delimitation of two National Assembly’s constituencies of Lahore (NA-120 and NA-123), but remanded the matter to the ECP with a direction to remove technical mistakes found in the process. The petitions were filed by voters of the constituencies.

Published in Dawn, December 9th, 2023