QUETTA: National Party (NP) President Dr Abdul Malik Baloch has opposed the upcoming national census and termed it ‘unconstitutional’, saying that Constitution did not allow that a census was taken before 10 years.

Presiding over a meeting of the party’s central committee in Karachi on Sunday, Dr Baloch said that the census in the country should be taken every 10 years and taking it after just five years was a violation of the Constitution.

The meeting also discussed several other issues, including the ongoing political situation, organisational matters, and the Reko Diq mining agreement.

NP Secretary General Mir Jan Muhammad Buledi quoted Dr Baloch as telling the central committee members that the leadership of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) had practically ignored democracy and the 1973 Constitution while passing a bill guaranteeing the protection for foreign investment in the Reko Diq project.

“Reko Diq is the national property of the people of Balochistan and it will not be relinquished under any circumstances,” Dr Baloch said.

“We have nothing to do with the government of the Pakistan Democratic Movement and its allies. Our alliance with the PDM was and still is on 26 points, which include the recovery of all missing persons, giving control of Balochistan’s natural resources to the Baloch nation, and ending interference by state institutions in the electoral process in the country,” he said.

Dr Baloch, who served as Balochistan’s chief minister from 2013 to 2015, said that no compromise would be made on the Baloch nation’s interests and no conspiracy against Balochistan and its people was acceptable.

He directed National Party leaders to prepare themselves for elections, give time to party workers and responsible colleagues, and go to their areas to mobilise party activists for polls.

He said Pakistan was a federation where all nations were constitutional and legal owners of resources in their provinces. The equality of nations should be recognised, he said.

The NP president said that his party had a clear policy that there should be no interference in the election process of the country and that the people should be given a free choice to elect their representatives without any fear, adding that his party believed in the power of the people.

Published in Dawn, December 26th, 2022