Sindh to raise census issue in joint session of parliament

Chairman Pakistan Peoples Party Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Friday received a briefing on the issues that pertained to the approval of the 2017 controversial national census as well as to development schemes for Karachi.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah and Adviser to the CM on Law Murtaza Wahab called on the party chairman here at the Bilawal House and apprised him about the illegal and unfair manner in which the federal government had proceeded to approve the sixth national census conducted in 2017.

The CM was the only CCI (Council of Common Interests) member who had dissented with other members and was of the view that the populations of the Sindh and Balochistan provinces had been undercounted in the last census campaign.

The PPP-led Sindh government, keeping in view the interests of the Sindh province, has, in accordance with Article 154 of the Constitution, decided to raise this issue in a joint session of the parliament.

Last month, Chief Minister Shah had told a press conference at the CM House that the faulty census of 2017 had shown Sindh’s population to be 47.8 million, but a Unicef survey showed that the population of the province stood at 61.04 million. “If the population of the province is counted at 61.04 million, the share of the province in the national resources will go up from about 24 per cent to 29 per cent.”

The CM had said that the 2017 census was conducted 19 years after the 1998 census, but it became controversial soon after its provisional results were declared during the tenure of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government.

“Almost all the chief ministers, including the Punjab CM, had criticised its results,” he said, adding that the 2018 general election was held under the provisional results of the 2017 census. for which the PML-N government had taken all parties on board.