Civil society, intellectuals, lawyers reject digital census results

In joint statement, they say many areas in rural Sindh have been undercounted

KARACHI:

The ongoing digital census has been embroiled in controversies, with all stakeholders, especially the political players of Sindh, doubting the conduct of the headcount in the province.

The civil society, intellectuals, writers, artistes and lawyers from Sindh also joined the calmour on Monday voicing deep concerns over the federal government’s “unconstitutional attempt to rig the census results” as they alleged undercounting of population in several rural areas of the province.

In a joint statement issued at the launch of a signature campaign on the issue, they called for an immediate halt to the digital census adding that an emergency meeting of the Council of Common Interest (CCI) should be called to review the exercise.

“After figure fudging in the 2017 census and hugely increasing the number of assembly seats for Punjab, the federal government has now undertaken a digital census in violation of the Constitution as the subject is not within its ambit after the 18 Constitutional Amendment,” they said in the joint statement.

“The subject falls under the domain of CCI where the provinces have equal representation to evolve a consensus and take a decision,” they added. “Since the central government is heavily influenced by one province i.e. Punjab, therefore, administratively and politically, it always tries to fudge census and rig polls to keep absolute power in one province.”

Also read: PTI protests against ‘skewed’ census

The joint statement was issued by notable intellectuals, writers, and artists, including Noorul Huda Shah, Jami Chandio, Barrister Zamir Ghumro, academic Dr Arfana Mallah, Amar Sindhu, and Advocate Yousif Laghari, in which they further said that the digital census, which started on March 1, was supposed to be completed in one month, but the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) continues to play hide and seek by extending dates.

“It has extended the deadline for five times. The extensions are politically motivated to appease the two political parties in Karachi who also mount pressure on the government to get desired results,” as per the statement.

They strongly criticised the census authorities for their “double standards” in the exercise. "On the one hand, the census has been closed in many districts of Sindh that were badly hit by last year’s floods, while on the other hand, they are extending dates in the urban centres of Sindh to appease two political parties,” they said, adding that there were many blocks in almost all the districts of Sindh that have yet not been completely counted.

"We, the civil society members, reject the current census exercise outright as it is not acceptable to the people of Sindh," they said, adding that the current headcount was another attempt to keep Punjab’s numbers intact and ensure its political dominance in the country.