NA session summoned to legislate on fresh delimitation

ISLAMABAD: President Mamnoon Hussain on Wednesday summoned a session of the National Assembly at 4:00 pm tomorrow to take up the proposed constitutional amendment bill for fresh delimitation of constituencies on the basis of the new census figures ahead of the general election in 2018.

Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq is also scheduled to chair a meeting of the leaders of parliamentary parties at the Parliament House to discuss delimitation of constituencies.

The parliamentary leaders’ huddle comes on the heels of a meeting of the Council of Common Interest (CCI) held on Nov 13 to evolve a consensus among the center and provinces on the fresh delimitation of constituencies and reallocation of seats in the National Assembly ahead of 2018 general elections.

The meeting deliberated upon different issues including delimitation of constituencies and provisional results of Census-2017.

Later briefing media persons, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister Musadik Malik told that the forum has evolved a consensus among the political leadership deciding that next general election will be held using the provisional data compiled in census 2017.

He said one percent data of the census would be evaluated by a third party to judge the authenticity of the data.

Pakistan People’s Party, the ruling party in Sindh, had questioned the population figures compiled during the recent census in the province.

Musaddiq Malik said one block would be picked from each province, where census and the data would be analyzed comparing the current data.

He said by evolving this consensus, the CCI has averted the looming constitutional crisis regarding the census results that would provide a basis for the delimitation of the constituencies across the country.