PTI demands one-phase census in Sindh to ‘save face’

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has demanded that the Sindh government conduct the upcoming census across the province in a single phase if it does not want the exercise to be a “complete farce”.

PTI Karachi President Firdous Shamim Naqvi told a news conference at the Insaf House on Monday that the population and housing count scheduled for next month should be conducted keeping the ground realities in mind. He said that such an approach would be in the best political interest of the country, otherwise the whole exercise would leave a big question mark over its transparency and neutrality.

“There should be no room for error in the data gathered during the census,” he stressed. “But there are so many things that keep one from collecting correct statistics.”

To illustrate his point, Naqvi said: “Many women – around three to four per cent of the population of Sindh – don’t have CNICs. Moreover, even a room constructed on a water pump in an apartment block sometimes fits the description of a ‘house’ and is included in the census. Such things can be very misleading.”

The PTI city chief said census formed the basis for economic and social planning and, therefore, it needed to be carried out accurately. “If the process is held in two phases, many political parties would have reason to raise questions over its fairness and succeed in spreading chaos.”

So, he added, the population and housing count should be carried out in a single phase. “When 200,000 army soldiers are being called in to monitor the exercise, the number of days should also be reduced.”

He told the media that before starting the census, the electoral mechanism should also be clarified, as all over the world it was a principal stand that demarcation of population was made at the lowest number. He said his party demanded that its limits be fixed through roads and not on mohalla-basis.

He demanded that the Sindh chief minister convene an all-party conference, during which the bureaucracy engaged in the count should explain their strategy for ensuring free, fair and transparent census and how they would deal with the issue of people without identity cards.

“If the census is conducted in accordance with the population, then 42 to 45 seats of the National Assembly and 90 to 100 seats of the provincial assembly would be raised in Karachi alone.”