MQM-P rejects digital census

Says manipulated head-count figures detrimental to urban populace

KARACHI:

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) on Thursday reiterated its apprehension regarding gerrymandering of figures in the digital census.

“All we are demanding is that to count us correctly, not less not more, just do the headcount in a fair and transparent manner,” said MQM-P Senior Deputy Convener Syed Mustafa Kamal.

He said a high-level delegation of MQM-P met Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif for the fifth time a few days ago and apprised him about party’s reservations of the urban population regarding altering the demography of the province in a planned manner to disenfranchise the urban populace of its due rights.

“We will definitely not accept such a census,” Kamal said addressing the media at the party’s temporary headquarters in Bahadurabad.

The city is not supplied with water, garbage is not collected, not a single new development project has been launched and the extent of prejudice is such that Sindh education minister says that a ‘new university in Hyderabad will be built on his dead body’.

He said as per Pakistan Bureau of Statistics there are 270 houses in one block in Shaheed Benazirabad, but 200 houses in one block in Hyderabad and 198 houses in one block in Karachi. In a densely populated city like Karachi, there are 198 houses, but in Larkana, there are more than 250 houses.

He said that MQM-P does not accept the fake counting and will use every democratic right to protest against these injustices.

On this occasion, Senior Deputy Convener Dr. Farooq Sattar said that the main problem of MQM-P is with the provincial government of PPP. If this entire process takes place under the PPP provincial government, transparency is not possible.

Despite the MQM-P pointing out errors and extending the time, the census has not been corrected. The population of the urban district has been reduced. The population of Mirpurkhas, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Nawabshah cities has been reduced. The population of the divisions is increasing by 30 to 40 per cent, but the population of the urban districts is increasing only by 10 per cent.

Are the migrations and people born more in the rural districts? All over the world, the migrations are towards the cities. What is the fertility rate that people are born more in the rural areas and not in the cities?

Dr. Farooq Sattar further said that since 1972 till today whenever the PPP government came into powe, this has been happening in the census. We had already expressed our concerns on February 20, 2023. MQM had said that if the government does not conduct census itself, the census will never be correct.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, May 19^th, 2023.