Constitution allows new provinces: PML-N

Ahsan Iqbal says the new units should be for administrative convenience.

KARACHI:

A  Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader said on Tuesday that establishment of new provinces was permissible under the Constitution.

However, said PML-N information secretary Ahsan Iqbal, the party is of the view that new federating units should be for administrative convenience, not based on ethnicity.

He was addressing a press conference on Tuesday at PML House at Karsaz Road, which had come under attack the previous day.

“There should be a national framework to review demands for the establishment of new provinces in Pakistan,” he said. “Unfortunately, the political parties, during discussions on the 18th Amendment prior to its approval, had unanimously opposed the idea of creating more provinces,” he recalled.

He said the politicians pressing the demand for new federating units should have taken the initiative while they were in power during the dictatorial regime of Pervez Musharraf.

He said that Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s statement about making Karachi a province was misinterpreted. In fact, he had pointed out that creation of new provinces in the country was allowed under the constitution of Pakistan and that he had said that new provinces should be created, only if needed, with full consensus and for administrative purposes.

He said that he has come to the city to show solidarity with the PML-N workers and leaders following the attack on its main office in the city.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 27^th, 2011.