ISLAMABAD  -  Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah has said that the government had decided not to notify the lat­est census and upcoming elections would be held on basis of 2017 census. Sanaullah said, “The CCI (Council of Common Interests) has to complete its term. If this [new] census is not notified by then, the elections will be [held] on the basis of the pre­vious census and delimitation.”

“The government has decided it will not notify this [new census] and when the assemblies will dissolve after completing their terms, the Elec­tion Commission of Pakistan (ECP) will be bound to conduct elections on the basis of the previous census,” he said while speaking to a national news channel yesterday. Sanaul­lah said that the govern­ment would not be noti­fying the census as it had ‘issues’. Moreover, various stakeholders also had con­cerns over it, he added. Re­ferring to the reservations of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan about the 2017 census, he said the party was also unsat­isfied with the new digi­tal census as well. He add­ed that Balochistan’s new census had also drawn crit­icism. He emphasised that there should be agreement on the results of the census, and that any decision made in a hurry about it might re­sult in a ‘controversial situ­ation’ in the nation. He fur­ther said that developing a consensus on the census so that all parties were confi­dent about it would “take time”. Talking about the consultation process for nominees for the caretaker prime minister, Sanaullah said Prime Minister Sheh­baz Sharif was working on the matter, adding, the pro­cess could be completed in a week or 10 days. “The prime minister will consult the leader of the opposition and allies on it,” he added. It’s worth mentioning that a senior ECP official had said previously that con­ducting the upcoming gen­eral polls on the basis of the latest delimitation was out of the question with the re­sults of the digital census yet to be formally notified.