ECP will complete delimitation of constituencies by May 2018: Babar Yaqoob

ISLAMABAD: Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) will make efforts to complete the process of ‘delimitation of constituencies’ by May next year before General Elections.

This was stated by Secretary ECP Babar Yaqoob after a meeting held to deliberate on various aspects and requirements of delimitation of the constituencies.

Briefing the media, the ECP secretary said five committees, including four provincial and one for Islamabad and FATA, have been formed and given a task to gather the details and maps pertaining to demarcation of the constituencies.

He said the electoral commission would formally start the process of delimitation of constituencies from January 15 and a delimitation proposal would be prepared within forty five days.

On the occasion, he also urged the provincial governments to allocate staff to undertake the exercise of registration of seven and a half million voters that are presently not registered.

Earlier today, the country’s top electoral body held a meeting in Islamabad to discuss arrangements for delimitation of constituencies and other electoral matters.

All the Provincial Election Commissioners, Chief Secretaries, Secretary Pakistan Board of Statistics and Chairman NADRA attended the meeting.

Earlier this week, the Senate approved the constitution (amendment) bill, 2017 pertaining to delimitation of the constituencies on the basis of provisional census results ahead of General Elections 2018.

The bill was passed with 84 votes in favour of the motion and one against.

The Senate was unable to vote on the bill for three times in November owing to lack of quorum until the PML-N led government had to hold talks with opposition parties to pass the constitution amendment bill.

Under the terms of the amendment, the total number of National Assembly seats will remain unchanged with adjustments in seats allocation for the provinces in accordance with the census 2017 results.

Punjab will lose out on seats as its in Pakistan’s population has fallen to 52 percent in 2017 from 56pc in 1998.

On the other hand, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will gain the seats lost by Punjab, while Sindh’s share will remain the same.