Sindh cabinet will surely reject census results: CM

The Sindh cabinet would surely reject the results of the ongoing census results whenever they will be presented before it.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said this while talking to media persons at St Joseph’s Convent School after attending a ceremony there on Thursday. He said that when the population of Karachi and Sindh was understated in the 2017 census, it was he who had rejected the census results in the Council of Common Interests (CCI).

He claimed that at that time, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and even Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) had earlier maintained mysterious silence on the census issue when the number of people in Karachi and Sindh was counted 16 million and 47 million respectively, but now surprisingly these parties were trying to become a champion of the cause.

To a question, he said he was quite surprised that the PTI had announced a protest demonstration against the ongoing census. “They [PTI] were in the government when the population of Karachi was counted at 16 million and of the entire province at 47 million, but they did not raise their voice and it was me who had rejected the census of 2017 in the CCI meeting,” he said and added that the MQM-P had also was accepted the 2017 census on condition that another census would be prematurely held.

Shah said that as far as the JI was concerned, it had also maintained silence in the past, except for a few statements, but now it was also trying to be a champion of the cause purely for political reasons. “I know people of the province, particularly Karachi, know very well that it was the PPP [Pakistan Peoples Party] government in Sindh that had fought for their rights and still contesting the case,” he said.

He told the media that when the ongoing census kicked off, he questioned its methodology and expressed reservations about the enumeration process. “The federal government addressed some of the reservations but still we are not satisfied because various reservations are yet to be resolved,” he said.

The CM said that in the 2023 census, members per household in Sindh had been shown less than that in the other provinces. To a question regarding provincial assembly elections in Punjab, the CM said that a large number of National Assembly seats from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa had been vacant for long but nobody bothered to make a move for holding the elections there within 90 days. He remarked that focus had been made only in the case of provincial assembly elections in Punjab.

The CM said that the country was faced with multiple crises, and it should not be pushed further into other crises. He added that the anti-polio drive was in progress all over the country where security forces were providing security to the polio teams apart from providing security to the census teams. “In such a state of affairs, how the security agencies could spare their personnel for election duty,” he said.

Shah said the general elections would be held on time. “The impact of elections in Punjab is more than 50 per cent on the total electorate in the country and the constitution calls for holding the elections under the supervision of a caretaker government and at present a political government is in power in the Centre,” he said.