KARACHI, July 23: A minority member of the Sindh Assembly has called for proportional increase in the seats for religious minorities in parliament and provincial assemblies and also demanded due representation of women from minorities in the elected houses.

Speaking at a press conference at the Karachi Press Club on Monday, MPA Saleem Khursheed Khokhar said that the number of Muslim parliamentarians had been increased by 27-480 per cent between 1988 and 2002 but the seats reserved for minorities had remained static which was unfair.

Similarly, he added, the women belonging to the minority communities who appeared to be the most vulnerable section of society had no representation in the parliament due to which their issues could not be highlighted, debated and resolved by the elected houses.

Mr Khokhar, who belongs to the Christian community, said that although the number of women seats in parliament and assemblies had been increased, no political party nominated a minority member as its candidate for the seats. He suggested that either a quota for minority women should be fixed or extra seats should be allocated for them. He observed that at present, public representatives from the minorities belonged only to the Hindu and Christian communities while the other minorities — including Buddhists, Parsis, Qadyanis and Sikhs had no representation in the elected houses. They should also be given due representation in the houses so that the issues specifically concerning their communities could be debated and resolved, he added.

Mr Khokhar also observed that the All Parties Minorities Alliance (APMA) had been raising the issue of inadequate representation of minorities in the elected houses for long, and told the media that the federal cabinet had approved a reasonable increase in the seats for minorities but a bill in this regard was yet to be introduced parliament. He urged the government to introduce the bill as soon as possible.

Giving data of the increased seats of various categories from 1988 to 2002, the MPA said the general seats in the National Assembly had been increased from 207 to 272 (around 31 per cent) and the seats reserved for women from 20 to 60 (about 200 per cent). In the Sindh Assembly, he said, the general seats were increased from 100 to 130 (30 per cent) while women seats from five to 29 (480 per cent) during the period. In the Punjab Assembly, the general seats were increased from 240 to 330 (around 37 per cent) and women seats from 12 to 29 (around 141 per cent) during the same period, he said.

Mr Khokhar told the media that in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, the general seat were increased from 80 to 99 (about 23 per cent) and the women seats from four to 22 (around 250 per cent) while in the Balochistan Assembly the general seats were increased from 40 to 51 (about 27 per cent) and the women seats from two to 11 (around 450 per cent) during the same period.

He regretted that despite the increase in the general and women seats, the number of those reserved from minorities remained unchanged, i.e. 10 in the National Assembly, nine in the Sindh Assembly; eight in the Punjab Assembly and three each in the KP and Balochistan assemblies. He stressed that the minorities seats should also be increased in the same proportion in which the seats for Muslims had been increased.

Former Sindh Assembly members Malik Ata, Samuel Xavier and others were also present.