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KARACHI – A multi-party conference, organized by the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party here, jointly announced that the results of the Seventh National Population and Housing Census would not be accepted unless Sindh’s “concerns” were addressed. The meetings, which were attended by many political, religious and nationalist parties, also demanded that the upcoming general elections be held on the basis of the results of the digital census in all four provinces. Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) – an umbrella of various political parties in Sindh – boycotted the conference, while Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan did not attend the event due to its foundation day event being held on Saturday (today) .
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-Fazl), Awami National Party (ANP), Sindh Taraqqi-pasand Party (STP), Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan (JUP), AWP, AJP and others participated in the PPP event. The electronic media was not allowed to cover the event live except for speeches by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah and PPP’s Sindh chapter president Senator Nisar Khuhro. Addressing the conference, the CM apprised the participants about shortcomings in the census and said that an estimated 20 percent of the population of Sindh was deprived of computerized national identity cards due to which the government could not demand the census to be held on the basis of CNICs. He demanded that the Sindh government access census data so that the province would know the number of “illegal foreigners” living in Sindh.
He said that apart from extending the time for the census, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had termed all other demands of Sindh as “legitimate” and urged all relevant authorities to include the province’s proposal in it.
“We will see if the prime minister’s directions are implemented,” he said, adding that Sindh had demanded that “illegal foreigners” also be counted to ascertain their number in the province. “We want census but it should be conducted in a transparent manner,” he said.
Senator Khuhro, host of the event, said there were flaws in the tablets provided to enumerators for digital census. STP chief Dr Qadir Magsi said the census tended to take place after a gap of 10 years but this digital census was done because of the nexus between MQM-P and PTI. “PTI wanted to give legal status to illegal Afghans in Karachi while MQM-P wanted same status to Bengalis, Biharis,” he said. PML-N leader Kheel Das Kohistani said the census was a constitutional issue but all concerns should be resolved in a constitutional forum. JUI-F leader Rashid Mehmood Soomro, ANP leader Shahi Syed, Sunni Tehreek’s Aftab Qadri, JI’s Osama Razi, JUP’s Mohammed Haleem Ghauri, AWP and AJP leaders, journalists and writers Nazeer Leghari and Dr Ayub Shaikh’s Association , Sindh Wal Moham Graduates and others too. spoke.
PARTIES DEMAND REMOVAL OF “DEFECTS”
Senator Khurho told a press conference that the participating parties had demanded that the period of the census be extended. He said the discussion also called for the population of the province to be counted correctly, the defects in the census to be removed and “illegal immigrants” to be included in a separate box in the census form.
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