HYDERABAD: Paki-stan Peoples Party Sindh president Nisar Ahmed Khuhro has said that Sindh`s reservations over digital census have not been addressed yet and the party had opposed the headcount in the first place because it believed no enabling environment for the exercise existed in the country.

Senator Khuhro told journalists at the residenceof a party leader here on Saturday that the ongoing census showed that the province`s population had increased by 15 million in just five years.

He said that PPP had stood for de facto counting in digital census instead of de jure so that everyone was counted wherever he or she was present. His party had expressed reservations earlier as well when the census was held in 2017, he said.

He said the party believed no enabling environment existed in the country for digital census. PPP had called for payment of allowance to enumerators so that they could reach out to everyone even in remote areas, he said.

He said that the party`s central executive committee had also rejected the census. `But our [PPP`s] reservations still remain unaddressed,` he said, adding that PPP had raised questions over extension in deadline for the census in specific urban areas excluding villages from the headcount.

He said the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government did not hold 5pc random block sampling of census and bulldozed everything while announcing that a new census would be held before 2023 general election. It would certainly be disclosed how much funds had been spent out of Rs35bn allocated for the census, he said.

Khuhro said the previous governments also participated in general elections when the census was not held or National Finance Commission (NFC) Awards were not announced despite constitutional binding.

He said the last census was held in 1998 and then it was carried out in 2017 amid serious reservations of stakeholders. There were certain weaknesses on the part of present coalition government, which was in fact a sort of national government, he said.

But, he stressed, political parties still kept participating in political process despite having to grapple with the weaknesses. This census had, however, led to an increase of 15m in Sindh`s population over last five years.He said that NFC award was to be announced in 2015 and then in 2020 but it was not declared. This census would have a serious bearing on Sindh`s share in NFC, he said.

He said that PPP stood for elections simultaneously held across Pakistan within 60 days after completion of the tenure of the present assemblies and said that PPP had urged PTI chairman not to play with destiny of Pakistan, which had witnessed four martial laws and rendered political parties and political process weak.

He said that today political parties were part of a national government, which was striving to ensure development but PTI was creating obstructions to the process.

He said that Imran Khan took the extreme step of dissolving his own governments and resigning from parliament although saner people had called upon him not to resign from the parliament so that he might still have some weightage despite being out of government.

About local government elections, Khuhro said that PPP treated every single individual as jiyala who was elected on PPP`s electoral symbol. In fact `political families` and communities constituted political parties in the country, he said.

He said that PPP had now ensured representation to differently-abled people on reserved seats in addition to youths, transgender persons, members of minorities and labourers. All these people came from marginalized sections of society, he added.

He condemned May 9 violence across the country following the arrest of Imran Khan in Al Qadir Trust case. Imran Khan was believed to be facilitator in the case as he had allegedly been gifted 460 acres of land in lieu of this `facilitation`. But, he said, despite that he reacted in an unpredictable manner and miscreants attacked monuments and military installations.

Local party leaders Ali Mohammad Sahito, Ali Nawaz Shah Rizvi, Dost Ali Jessar and Aftab Khanzada were also present during Khuhro`s press talk.