ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah on Saturday asserted that thenext general elections, scheduled to be held in 2023, will be based on thelast census carried out in 2017.
Speaking to a private news channel, the interior minister said that thegovernment has decided not to notify the latest census and the upcomingelections would be held on the basis of 2017 census.
Rana Sanaullah noted that Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) – anally of the government in the Centre – was unsatisfied with the new digitalcensus as well. “They don’t even accept this new census,” he added.
The minister stressed that there should be consensus on census results and“any decision in haste could lead to a controversial situation” in thecountry.
“Developing a consensus on the census so that all parties were confidentabout it would take time,” he added.
In a statement, Ahsan Iqbal reiterated that elections will be held at itsprescribed time and the prime minister already gave the statement about theelection commission’s responsibility to finalise the schedule of the polls.
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He added that the general elections would possibly be held on old censusdata. Iqbal was of the view that delimitations are still pending after thenew population census. “If elections are held in October, then it will beconducted on old census data.”
The planning minister said that the authorities found anomalies in thepopulation count of some areas in the recent census. On the request of theprovince, the federal government extended the census deadline, he added.
Ahsan Iqbal said that it would not be possible to issue census results inaccordance with the new election schedule.
