The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Wednesday has notified re-described constituencies of national and provincial assemblies. The notification says that 128 National Assembly constituencies and 292 provincial constituencies have been re-described. "The re-description is unavoidable because of geographical changes in the constituencies' respective areas," it added.
Changes have been made in 292 provincial constituencies that include 73 constituencies in KP, 137 in Punjab, 66 in Sindh and 16 in Balochistan. The changes has been made under Section 10-A of the Delimitation Act of 1974, which empowers the commission to make such changes in the constituencies. For carrying out delimitation of a constituency, the ECP needs to hold a public hearing but as far as re-description of a constituency was concerned there was no such procedure to follow.
According to the National Assembly constituencies where re-description has been done include both the constituencies of the federal capital Islamabad, 19 constituencies in Khyber Pakthunkhwa, 17 in Punjab, 34 in Sindh and three in Balochistan. An official of the ECP clarified that the next general elections would be held on the basis of existing constituencies because the former government failed to complete the national population census, the ECP is bound to keep old constituencies intact for the general elections scheduled to be held in 2013. For example, the official explained if there was addition of some new district or tehsil to a constituency that needed to be explained in the re-description of the constituency.
According to the Population Census Organisation, even the final report on the house listing census was expected in the later part of next year, leaving the ECP in no position to take up delimitations of constituencies prior to the polls.
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