The Upper House of Parliament will take up the 24th Constitutional Amendment Bill on Monday as it is not included in the order of day for today (Friday) after the government failed to break deadlock on it. The sources said that Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has stepped in to end the impasse and has approached Khursheed Shah, the Opposition Leader in the National Assembly, to help government in getting the bill passed from the Senate where his party enjoys majority.
They said that the lawmakers belonging to Sindh are not ready to support the bill unless the government assures them about engaging professional people with the knowledge of demography and statistics for undertaking a third party audit of census blocks. Another pressing demand of the PPP is that it wants assurance in writing from the government that it would raise number of census blocks from one percent to five percent for third party audit.
Parliamentary Leader of PPP in the Senate, Senator Taj Haider said, "We want assurance from the government that it would raise it from one percent to five percent. After Council of Common Interests (CCI) meeting the Prime Minister promised to raise this third part audit of census blocks from one percent to five percent but now he is tight-lipped."