Naimat Khan
KARACHI: While strongly rejecting the provisional census results, the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) on Monday announced to hold an All Parties’ Conference on the issue of census, which, it alleges, has been manipulated by the central government of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).
This announcement was made by President Pakistan Peoples Party, Sindh Nisar Ahmed Khuhro here at Sindh Assembly. This reaction from Khuhro, who is also senior Sindh Minister, came after the bureau of statistics issued more provisional results – this time with cities’ breakup – showing that from 1998 to 2017, Lahore’s population has grown by roughly at a rate double that of Karachi.
While issuing policy statement of the Sindh Government and ruling party of the province, Khuhro directly accused the federal government for showing less population of Sindh under a planned conspiracy.
“This has been done in order to reduce the share of Sindh province in national finance award,” Khuhro opined.
The PPP Sindh chief said his party had serious reservations, which turned out to be true. “We have decided to convene an all-party conference for which we have started contacting different political cliques,” he said, adding that PPP will not leave its right to anyone else.
Soon after the PML-N government released provincial results of the census on Saturday different political parties voiced their reservations about the statistics.
Those who expressed their reservations included the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM-London), MQM Pakistan, Jamaat-e-Islami, Karachi and Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP).
According to statistics board, Pakistan’s population has surged to over 207 million, with an average annual growth rate of 2.4 percent from calendar year 1998 as recorded in recently concluded sixth housing and population census. According to provisional summary results of the census which were presented in the Council of Common Interests (CCI) on Friday, this population number included 132,189,531 rural and 75,584,989 urban population, showing an overall population growth at 57 percent during the period of 1998-2017. The updated figure — an increase of around 57 percent since 1998 — is higher than the estimate of 200 million that had been in wide use.
While commenting on the results, the PPP MPA Senator Saeed Ghani questioned how can be 52 per cent population of Sindh in cities. He said Punjab is the most urbanized province. “It seems that the figures are wrong,” he said.
The MQM Senator Tahir Mashhadi and MNA Saman Jafri also raised similar questions, saying that census 2017 figures are “manipulated” and a “chunk” of data on Karachi is missing. “It is obvious that census figures have been manipulated by vested interests in Sindh. Wrong figures have very adverse effects,” said Mashhadi.
“The petition on our reservations is already in court and we will raise it on all relevant forums,” Saman Jafri said.
Syed Mustafa Kamal’s Pak Sarzameen Party also rejected the results.
“PSP rejects dubious results given after Census. Soon the PSP will conduct a press conference to enlighten ppl (people) with facts,” the party said through its official Twitter handle.
Pakistan’s total population has been recorded at 207.774 million, according to the provisional summary results of the sixth population and housing census.
The sixth Housing and Population Census began after a period of 19 years on March 15. The census was conducted in 16 districts of Punjab, eight districts of Sindh, 14 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 15 districts of Balochistan, five districts of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and five districts of Gilgit-Baltistan.
