ISLAMABAD: Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja on Wednesday said that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) takes its decisions without any fear and will continue to do so.
CEC made this remark while talking to the journalist today geo news,
We don’t care if someone is angry with us or agrees with us. Everyone is our friend. The Election Commission takes decisions according to the Constitution and the law.
He said that the government has to decide when the elections are to be held, “Our job of the Election Commission is to conduct free and fair elections and we are always ready for that”.
“Work on delimitation is in full swing and ECP’s position with regard to census was clear that it cannot be done before the publication of Census 2017 results which were finally released in May 2021.”
He said that the work on the new delimitation started after the census results were out.
The CEC said a constitutional amendment had been introduced regarding the 2018 elections and delimitation.
Raja said the government wants a digital census and the delimitation will be completed in time when the results are available by December 2022.
He said that if the result is delayed, then elections will be held on the basis of the 2017 census.
Regarding the resignation of PTI MNA, CEC Raja said that former deputy speaker Qasim Suri did not take the matter forward to the ECP.
“The hearing on foreign funding is going on and it is important to give a chance to all the parties.”
NA general seats reduced from 342 to 336
Meanwhile, the ECP in its report on the preliminary delimitation of constituencies has reduced the number of National Assembly seats from 342 to 336. The delimitation was done as per the 2017 census.
Punjab’s share in the legislature has been cut by 10 seats, from 183 to 173, general seats reduced from 148 to 141, while women’s seats have been reduced from 35 to 32. The representation of Sindh in the National Assembly remains unchanged as per the draft report of the new. Delimitation, i.e. 75 seats, 61 general and 14 women seats.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the major beneficiary of the new exercise against the backdrop of merger of tribal areas, which previously had 12 NA seats. KP earlier had 35 general and eight women seats (total 43 seats), whereas now its strength has increased to 55, with 45 general and 10 women seats.
Similarly, Balochistan has increased its representation in the lower house of parliament with 16 general and four women’s seats (20 seats), whereas earlier, it had 14 NA constituencies and three women’s seats in the legislature.
Islamabad Capital Region has also got one general seat and now has three NA seats. Therefore, the women reserved seats remain unchanged as well as the seats reserved for non-Muslims, i.e. 10.
According to the draft report, Punjab Assembly has 371 seats including 297 general seats, followed by Sindh Assembly with a total of 168 seats including 130 general seats, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly with 145 seats including 115 general seats and Balochistan Assembly. With 65 seats including 51 general seats.