MQM-P rejects digital census results

Says unbelievable that population of rural Sindh is rising and Karachi’s declining

KARACHI:

Muttahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan (MQM-P) has rejected the results of the digital census announced so far by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics and demanded re-conduct of the exercise and access of people to the dashboard of the statistics department.

MQM-P Senior Deputy Convener Dr Farooq Sattar while addressing a press conference at the party’s temporary headquarters in Bahadurabad said the party will hold protest if their concerns regarding the digital census were not allayed.

The head of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics has released the data related to the census which was unacceptable to MQM-P, Sattar said adding, data shows that the population of rural Sindh has increased while the population of urban Sindh, especially Karachi, has decreased. “This process clearly shows that our concerns were valid.”

The MQM-P leader said the plan is to show Karachi’s population as low as twenty million. The Sindh government was afraid that if the population of Karachi was counted correctly, the next chief minister would be from the party winning from Karachi.

To avoid this situation, the ruling party of the province, was rigging the census through its enumerators and civil servants, Sattar said.

He further said that so far more than 500 complaints have been received from different districts of the city regarding the census.

“According to our information, the PPP-led Sindh government has been given access to the PBS dashboard,” he said adding that MQM-P has reports that PPP was pressurising the statistics department to show population of rural Sindh as high as possible and Karachi as low as possible.

“We demand that if the Sindh government can be given access to the data, MQM-P and all the people of Pakistan should also be given access to the PBS dashboard,” he said.

The statistics agency should make the data of the dashboard public so that every individual can see his own count through mobile phones.

He said there were reports from the residents of various localities that enumerators go to one house and leave four houses. No one knows whether data entry was being done in the tab of the enumerators or not.

Sattar blamed the provincial government for colluding with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to illegally occupy a cosmopolitan city like Karachi in the census and is committing abuses by not registering more than half of the population of Sindh in the census. Census is the issue of our survival.

He said that MQM-P would hold peaceful protest and also knock at the doors of the judiciary and state institutions on the matter of fidgeting census figures.

He said with MQM-P’s demands not accepted, remaining in the government or supporting it has become questionable. “We are placing our concerns before the chief of army staff, the chief justice of Pakistan and prime minister through today’s press conference,” Sattar said.

For the last five days, ‘Mardam Shumari Hamari Redline’ has been a top trend on social media. We appreciate the social media team of MQM-P and the citizens of Karachi for raising their voice on social media.

Rabita committee members Zahid Mansoori, Syed Hafeezuddin and others were also present on this occasion.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, March 29^th, 2023.