ISLAMABAD - The Election Commission of Pakistan announced on Monday to complete the process of delimitation of constituencies and revision of electoral rolls in the first week of May this year.

The announcement was made by the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Justice (Retd) Sardar Muhammad Raza Khan, while presiding over a high-level meeting.

The meeting was attended by members of different Parliamentary parties and officials of the Election Commission.

The CEC said that the Commission was discharging its responsibilities as per law and the Constitution and would ensure free, fair and transparent elections.

The delegates were also apprised of the special steps being taken by the Commission for the issuance of identity cards and registration of women voters.

The Parliamentary party members appreciated the efforts of the Commission and assured every possible support.

Later, while talking to media persons outside the ECP, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Zahid Hamid said that they had proposed that maximum voter registration should be ensured.

He said that it was also proposed that special campaigns should be launched in areas where votes of women were less or not registered.

Minister for Privatisation Daniyal Aziz said that they would take up the issue of delimitation of constituencies in the meeting of the Central Working Committee on Tuesday (today).

Background discussions with the political experts suggest that the potential candidates will make all-out efforts to manoeuvre the criterion for delimitation in their favour.

An ECP official, when contacted, said that any errors or complaints, if received would be duly addressed and removed.

He ruled out possibility of manoeuvring in the delimitation process.

Former ECP Secretary Kanwar Dilshad had written a letter to the ECP and conveyed his reservations to the Commission about potential manoeuvring in the delimitation of the constituencies.

In his letter, the former ECP Secretary had asked the ECP to hold all the delimitation process under one roof to avoid irregularities.

Over a month ago, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) had given blocks and maps to remove errors and mistakes for the delimitation of constituencies.

The ECP teams, with the help of maps and blocks, worked for the delimitation of the constituencies.

As many as 163,541 blocks had been marked countrywide to conduct the 6th census.

The process of the delimitation of the constituencies will reportedly conclude in March.

The issue of increasing the census blocks from one per cent to five per cent for a third-party audit was approved at the last Council of Common Interests (CCI) meeting. Both the Houses of the Parliament had passed a constitutional amendment about fresh delimitation of the constituencies on the basis of provisional results of the 6th Population Census.

Two Opposition parties, the PPP and the MQM-P, had mainly raised objections to the results, demanding five per cent third-party audit.

The first population census was conducted in 1951, second in 1961, third in 1972, fourth in March 1981, fifth in 1998 and the 6th census was conducted in 2017.