Former Senate chairman and senior Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Senator Raza Rabbani said on Sunday that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) must step up and offer explanations on rumours surrounding a possible delay in elections.
Yesterday, the Council of Common Interest (CCI) unanimously approved the results of the 7th population and housing census, concluding that the population of Pakistan has reached 241.49 million with a growth rate of 2.55% as reported by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
The CCI’s 50th meeting was chaired by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and attended by chief ministers of all provinces, three federal ministers and key leaders of the allied parties invited on special invitation.
The CCI decision is likely to result in a delay in general elections slated for November this year if the assemblies are dissolved on August 9, three days shy of their term completion. A new census means a new delimitation of constituencies, which, according to some experts, may take at least four months.
Talking to a private news channel, Federal Minister for Law Azam Nazeer Tarar hinted at the possibility.
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It is up to the Election Commission of Pakistan as to how much time it takes to complete the process of delimitation following the unanimous decision by CCI, Tarar said.
Referring to Article 51 of the Constitution, the law minister said general elections are held on the basis of the population in accordance with the last preceding census officially published.
Speaking on the Senate floor today, Rabbani said "There is a fear of delay in the election after the approval of the census," before stressing that "according to the Constitution, elections must be held within 60 to 90 days [after the government completes its terms]."
"The ECP must break its silence on the matter," he said urging the watchdog to complete the process of delimiting constituencies at the earliest.
"The federation will be destroyed if polls are delayed," he warned.
Meanwhile, Leader of the House and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar took the floor and defended the digital census saying, "The Balochistan chief minister was present in the meeting".
"The census was approved by consensus of all provinces," he underscored. "All digital census records are there for everyone to see," he added.
Dar also said that "the decision to conduct an online consensus before the elections was approved by the previous Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government" and informed the upper house that Rs34 billion had been spent on the endeavour.
As Dar spoke, his voice was muffled by the noise of senators that spoke out in disagreement.
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On the other hand, PTI senators protested for not being granted permission to speak during the session. PML-N Senator Afnanullah also joined the protest.
JUI-F Senator Kamran Murtaza while expressing his views on the matter emphasised that the "census was approved four days before the end of the PTI government."
"In the results from the latest census, Balochistan's population has been reduced by 6.4 million. What message are we sending to the people of the province," he said criticising the government for approving the results.
"Those who are responsible for the plight of Balochistan are the ones who approved the census results yesterday," he added before walking out of the house in protest.
Law Minister Azam Nazir Tarar responded to Murtaza's criticism by saying that "his party's parliamentary leader was present in the [CCI] meeting as well."
"Various political parties had objections to the 2017 census," he continued, "the digital census was decided in January 2022. There is no malice in approving the census."
"Data was also collected through satellites with the help of Sparco," he added offering to share the data to help remove any reservations his colleagues had about the census.
He also said that the responsibility to complete the delimitation of the constituencies fell on the ECP. "We don't want delay in the election," he said.
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