Parliamentary panel hints at moving SC over disputed constituencies

Election authorities fail to show up at meeting to answer members’ queries

ISLAMABAD: The head of the parliamentary committee on delimitations hinted at moving the Supreme Court or bringing legislation on disputed constituencies, after election authorities did not attend a meeting on Tuesday in which they were supposed to respond to queries of the parliamentary panel.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) instead sent a letter to the working group of bipartisan parliamentary panel, reiterating that any objections should be sent to the commission by April 3.

The letter stated the officials who drafted the new delimitations could not attend the meeting because they were busy in reviewing preparations for the next general elections in another meeting at the ECP headquarters.

On March 5, the polls body put on display draft of new delimitations for public, after which lawmakers from different political parties during a National Assembly session questioned fairness in marking boundaries of constituencies.



The National Assembly speaker had, subsequently, constituted a bipartisan committee to look into the matter. The committee formed a smaller working group, headed by Federal Minister Daniyal Aziz, to formulate recommendations for the main panel.

A day ago, the Aziz-led working group asked the ECP to send officials who drafted boundaries to respond to members’ queries.

In the first meeting of the panel, the ECP objected that the delimitation exercise was the sole domain of the elections supervisory body, and the formation of the committee was interference in its affairs.

The ECP in its letter on Tuesday reiterated its earlier stance and asked the panel to submit written objections if there were any to the commission in the manner prescribed in the law.

Some members of the working group termed sending of such a letter breach of parliament’s privilege.

“How did the ECP constitute mapping committees when there was no such provision in the law?” said Aziz. He said the working group had been mandated to compile the complaints and recommendations, and forward them to the main committee.

He did not buy the ECP’s argument that a parliamentary panel could not look into the matter. “Can we not ask how there can be three norths in the map of a constituency?” he said.



Aziz said the working group would send its recommendations to the main paneland all the political parties which can jointly approach the Supreme Court under Article 184 or invoke the court’s intervention under Inquiry Act, 2017.

“We have many options available. We can amend the ordinance or introduce a constitutional amendment,” he remarked.

He alleged some institutions befooled parliament and got the 24^th amendment approved from parliament, which allowed new delimitations on the basis of provisional results.

Besides the National Assembly, he said, there were glaring discrepancies in many newly-marked provincial assembly constituencies as well.

Some members in the working group were of the opinion that all objections should be filed with the ECP and everyone should follow the procedure laid down in the law.

Secretary Statistics Division Rukhsana Yasmeen told the meeting that the final report of last year’s population census would be released by the end of next month.