ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Thursday called a meeting of the Council of Common Interest (CCI) in a bid to resolve the much controversial issue of the recently conducted census and the delimitation issues prior to general elections.
The CCI is a constitutional body which had been constituted to resolve issues between the provinces. Monday’s meeting has been called to remove a deadlock over a constitutional amendment regarding the delimitations, which would have increased the seats of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Balochistan, and the federal capital, but would have reduced Punjab’s and would not have affected seats of Sindh.
The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has been demanding that the matter should be discussed at the CCI for approval before a constitutional amendment can be brought.
Meanwhile, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM) also refused to accept census results and the proposed constitutional amendment.
Other than the regular members — federal ministers for finance, inter-provincial coordination and industries and four provincial chief ministers — the ministers for law, statistics and planning will also participate by special invitation in Monday’s meeting.
The controversy around delimitation had begun after Law Minister Zahid Hamid introduced the Constitutional Amendment Bill in the National Assembly on November 2 after an agreement among all parties during a two-day meeting of parliamentary leaders, chaired by NA Speaker Ayaz Sadiq.
Soon after the introduction of the bill, however, the PPP’s parliamentary leader Syed Naveed Qamar had declared the move unconstitutional, alleging that the government had played a trick on them by telling them that the bill was being moved in the light of the CCI’s decision, although that was not the case.
An Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) official said that the commission requires four months to complete the process of delimitation of the constituencies and added that the elections can be held on time if the commission is provided with the provisional census report on time.
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