Political parties express reservations about census results

KARACHI: As the PML-N government released initial results of the country's first census in almost two decades, different political parties voiced their reservations about the statistics.

The reservations were expressed by lawmakers from the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM-London), MQM Pakistan and Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP).

According to statistics board, Pakistan's population has surged to over 207 million, with an average annual growth rate of 2.4 percent from calendar year 1998 as recorded in recently concluded sixth housing and population census. According to provisional summary results of the census which were presented in the Council of Common Interests (CCI) on Friday, this population number included 132,189,531 rural and 75,584,989 urban population, showing an overall population growth at 57 percent during the period of 1998-2017. The updated figure -- an increase of
around 57 percent since 1998 -- is higher than the estimate of 200 million that had been in wide use.

While commenting on the results, the PPP MPA Senator Saeed Ghani questioned how can be 52 per cent population of Sindh in cities. He said Punjab is the most urbanised province. “It seems that the figures are wrong,” he said.

The MQM Senator Tahir Mashhadi and MNA Saman Jafri also raised similar questions, saying that census 2017 figures are "manipulated" and a "chunk" of data on Karachi is missing. "It is obvious that census figures have been manipulated by vested interests in Sindh. Wrong figures have very adverse effects," said Mashhadi.

"The petition on our reservations is already in court and we will raise it on all relevant forums," Saman Jafri said.

Syed Mustafa Kamal’s Pak Sarzameen Party also rejected the results.

"PSP rejects dubious results given after Census. Soon the PSP will conduct a press conference to enlighten ppl (people) with facts," the party said through its official Twitter handle.

Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Syed Khursheed Shah also raised reservations about the provisional report of the population census and said the records of the Statistics Division and the Pakistan Army should be compared.

Khursheed Shah said facts would come to the forefront once the two census records are compared. -- Agencies