Jirga in Bajaur threatens to boycott polls

KHAR: The jirga of local political leaders and elders on Sunday urged the Election Commission of Pakistan to postpone the polls for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly due to the ongoing digital census or else they would boycott the elections.

Speaking at the jirga, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl leader ex-senator Maulana Abdur Rashid, former KP governor Engr Shaukatullah Khan, ex-lawmaker Akhunzada Chattan of Pakistan People’s Party, Shah Naseer Khan of Awami National Party, Malik Gul Karim Khan of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Malik Asghar Khan of Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party, Tehsil Council Chairman Said Badshah, Imran Mahir and others said that they would not accept the elections for the provincial assembly as these were being held under the faulty census of 2017.

They pointed out that elections for KP and Punjab were being held as per the census 2017, which was full of errors while the Sindh and Balochistan provinces would go for polls with the new census 2023.

They said it would create an unconstitutional crisis if elections were held in two provinces under census 2017 and the rest of the country through the new census 2023.

The leaders said that leaders from all the merged districts were going to hold a protest at the National Press Club in Islamabad today and then present a memorandum to the ECP to take notice of the issue and resolve it before going to the polls for KP Assembly.

They also complained that the population of the merged district of Bajaur was being shown less under a conspiracy, which will be resisted tooth and nail.

They said that the government should first rehabilitate the displaced people of merged districts and then launch a census so the actual number of people could be counted and registered as well.