LARKANA: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Sindh president and Senator Nisar Ahmed Khuhro has urged the federal government to address the reservations voiced by his party and the provincial government regarding the ongoing digital census.

According to him, it is high time that the flaws and loopholes pinpointed be rectified.

“Our stand is crystal clear that the census exercise must be carried out on de facto basis as everyone present in the province should be counted, even a child of one hour,” he said while addressing party workers at his residence here on Sunday.

“The CNIC in the process is a must along with a separate box in the census form to enter the aliens. With the separate box in the form, we could have aliens’ data with us as Sindh has already reservations on the presence of outsiders in the province,” Mr Khuhro said.

When the CNIC was mandatory in exercising the right of franchise then why not in making entry in the census, he said. In case of unavailability of the CNIC, the B-form of Nadra should be made the basis of enumeration process, he suggested.

He said that a big number of people dislocated and migrated in the recent unprecedented flood and rains should also be enumerated on the basis of Nadra’s data and the very data must be shared with Sindh.

He said the party had decided to commemorate the 44th death anniversary of its founder and executed Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on April 4 in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh Bhutto.

PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Asif Ali Zardari and a host of other speakers would address the public gathering at Bhuttos Mausoleum on the day.

Proceedings of the public gathering would start after Iftar, he said and expected that a big number of people hailing from all over the country would participate in the event and pay tributes to their leader.

In that connection, he said, party leaders from Larkana, Benazirabad and Sukkur divisions would meet at the residence of Syed Khursheed Shah in Sukkur on Monday to finalise the arrangements.

He said the impression was getting roots that criterion for those who had gifted the country a unanimous constitution and the others who had been talking against it were different.

Mr Khuhro said Imran Khan got immediate justice, but on the contrary a reference filed by Asif Ali Zardari about the judicial murder of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was in waiting to be heard yet. What he called the impression of dual standard could only be erased with the verdicts based on equal treatment and justice, he said.

Describing dissolving Punjab and KPK assemblies by Imran Khan as unwise decision, he said he (Imran Khan) had insulted people’s mandate.

Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2023