ECP notifies final list of constituencies

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Thursday released the final list of constituencies completed under the fresh delimitation based on the 7th Population and Housing Census 2023, in which the general seats in the National Assembly had been decreased from 272 to 266.

According to the notification, the magic figure for becoming the new prime minister/leader of the house in the National Assembly has become 169 instead of 172. Under the new digital census, the ECP had reduced the representation of the newly merged districts in K-P from 12 to six.

In 2018, the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas was merged with K-P under the 25th Constitutional Amendment and initially 12 National Assembly seats were allocated to those districts for one time, which had now been reduced to six.

Hence, K-P’s strength in the National Assembly comes down to 45 from 51 in 2018. However, Punjab retained its 141 National Assembly seats; Sindh 51, Balochistan 16 and Islamabad three.

Read ECP begins compiling final list of constituencies

The general elections, which were supposed to be held on Nov 7 after the after the National Assembly was dissolved three days before the end of its constitutional term, were delayed as most political parties, particularly of Karachi, cried foul over the results of the new digital census, which had started on March 1 and ended in May.

It showed that Karachi's population had supposedly dropped by 15%. The population of Pakistan's largest city was still down about 1% from the last census in 2017, at 15.85 million. Several political parties, including the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), objected to the headcount, while concerns were also raised over the results in the most backward Balochistan province.

Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) spokesperson Zahid Askari had estimated that the city's actual population was probably more than 30 million, although there was no hard data to support this. The digital census was then re-conducted in September and the final results were released.

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The ECP stated that the number of general seats in the Punjab Assembly remained unchanged at 297, Sindh Assembly also remained unchanged at 130, as well as Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly 115 and Balochistan 51. According to the notification, the representation of Khairpur, Sanghar and Thatta districts in the Sindh Assembly has been reduced by one seat each.

It stated that Khairpur’s seats in the Sindh Assembly reduced from seven to six, the seats of Sanghar in the Sindh Assembly decreased from six to five and those of Thatta from three to two, while one seat each of Malir, Karachi East, and Karachi Central was increased.

Malir’s seats in the Sindh Assembly increased from five to six, Karachi East seats from eight to nine, and Karachi Central’s also from eight to nine.

In the new constituencies of the ECP, the seats of the National Assembly of Sindh have been changed. One seat in the National Assembly has increased. The seats in the National Assembly of Karachi South have increased from two to three.