CCI delays decision on new census

Islamabad: The meeting of Council of Common Interests (CCI) chaired by Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif Saturday postponed the decision of new census, GNN reported.

According to details, the meeting of CCI held at the Prime Minister's House was attended by the four provincial chief ministers, federal ministers and officials of other relevant departments including the Statistical Institute. Matters related to the new census were discussed in the meeting.

According to the sources, the Bureau of Statistics briefed the Council of Common Interests on the census, after which CCI postponed the decision regarding the new census in the country.

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) had expressed concerns over the decision of conducting elections as per new digital census.

Talking to GNN in this regard, Federal Minister of Information and Broadcasting Maryam Aurangzeb said that no decision has been taken in the Council of Common Interests regarding the census.

Maryam Aurangzeb added that the flight of Chief Minister of Balochistan has been delayed, therefore there is a break in the meeting which will resume at 2:30pm.

When the Chief Minister of Balochistan comes to attend the meeting, then a decision will be made in this regard.

Elections are likely to be delayed if the Digital Census 2023 results are approved.

It should be noted that the former government has also decided to conduct the 2023 elections under the new census.

The Council of Common Interests in the PTI government had approved that the 2023 elections would be held under the new census, after completing the seventh census and giving the data to the Election Commission to finalize the constituencies.