ECP wants digital census results by Mar 31

ISLAMABAD: In an important move, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has urged the government to share the planned first-ever digital census results by March 31, 2023, linking it to carrying out the fresh delimitation of constituencies accordingly, a legal requirement prior to elections.

The decision was taken to this effect, following the calculation of minimum time required with minimum length of timelines through the ‘in-House discussion’ and it has been communicated to the government formally.

It was learnt the government was conveyed that in the circumstances, it may be informed that it would be difficult for the ECP to conduct fresh delimitation of constituencies as per Article 51(5) of the Constitution, complete other related electoral activities and organise and manage the General Election 2023 on time, as per constitutional mandate in case official results are not provided on or before March 31, 2023.

Through a letter, sent to the Secretary Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives, the electoral body referred to the recent meeting of Election Commission, presided over by Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja and attended by the chief statistician and his team a few days back.

The meeting was informed by the chief statistician that the Council of Common Interest (CCI), in its 49th meeting, approved the timelines for conduct of 7th Population and Housing Census ‘Digitally’, and as per the initial plan, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) had to provide the provisional results of Population and Housing Census to ECP by Dec 31, 2022.

The PBS engaged NRTC initially for provision of software, hardware and allied services. However, the NRTC pulled out and showed inability to provide the services resultantly four months delay occurred, following which NADRA was engaged for these services. The meeting was also told that the transition of government and economic situation of the country caused further delay.

On his part, the Member Resource Management/ Support Services also briefed the forum that as per revised timelines, the PBS would be able to provide the Provisional Census results to ECP by April 30, 2023 while the Election Commission had repeatedly took the matter up with the ministry concerned and other related authorities with the request that the final results of Population and Housing Census be published by Dec 31, 2022 enabling the commission to complete key electoral activities for the conduct of general election 2023 i.e. preparation of the action plan, delimitation of constituencies and revision of the electoral rolls, etc.

Whereas, under Article 51(5) of the Constitution, the final published data is required for the purpose of delimitation of constituencies while under the Section 17(2) of the Elections Act 2017, the commission was bound to start delimiting constituencies after a census was officially published. Needless to say the term of incumbent assemblies will expire on August 12 next year, except for the Punjab Assembly, which will last until August 14, 2023.

On the publication of the census, the Election Commission will require time carry out a fresh delimitation exercise and the revision of electoral rolls will also be carried out in the wake of any increase or decrease in the numbers of census block codes and changes in the boundaries of blocks in different districts.

Keeping all these factors in mind, the Election Commission wanted the final census results by Dec 31, 2023; however, in the changed scenario, March 31, a new deadline has been set, enabling it to conduct fresh delimitation and undertake other essential pre-poll activities in minimum possible time.