Sindh sends reference to Parliament against approval of census results

KARACHI: The Sindh government on Saturday sent its reference to the Parliament against the decision of the Council of Common Interests (CCI) to approve the results of the last census held in the country in 2017.

The reference has been sent in accordance with the clause-seven of the Article 154 of the Constitution by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah to the Speaker of the National Assembly and Chairman of the Senate of Pakistan. The CM stated that the CCI had not duly acted upon the prescribed procedure for voting and an erroneous method was used instead. He said the CCI had approved the census results despite reservations expressed by its members from time to time.

CM Murad Ali Shah said the Sindh government didn’t accept the census results that had undercounted the population of Sindh.

Shah said the population of Sindh would be around 61,041,938 but it was shown 47,854,510 in the last census.

The CM said that he had taken a stance in the CCI meeting that people who had come to Sindh from other provinces were fraudulently not counted as the population of Sindh, but instead enumerated in the population count of their native provinces.

The CM recalled that he had also written to Prime Minister Imran Khan requesting him to dispel the reservations of the provinces against the federal cabinet’s decision to approve the census results.

He also referred to the decision by the Senate to verify the results of five per cent census blocks but instead, the government decided to hold fresh census in the country. He said that all the relevant quarters had accepted the provisional census results just for holding the last general elections 2018.