Daily Times

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) Saturday issued the final list of 266 National Assembly (NA) constituencies and 593 constituencies of provincial assemblies. In a statement, the ECP said a copy of the final delimitation of any constituency could be obtained from the commission’s secretariat in Islamabad. The schedule for the delimitation of constituencies was announced on April 11, 2022, said a press release issued by the election commission on Friday. The ECP said it received all relevant maps and documents from April 11 to April 26, 2022. The preliminary delimitation of constituencies was published on May 31, 2022, so that the commission may start receiving objections and suggestions on them. The delimitation committees received training from April 20 to April 24, 2022, the ECP said. From June 1 to June 30, the ECP received public objections and suggestions regarding the preliminary constituencies. The Election Commission received 910 objections (representations) over the proposed delimitations. The commission disposed of the objections by formally hearing them from July 1, 2022 to July 30, 2022. Later, the final list of newly delimited constituencies was published, added the ECP. On May 31, the ECP issued the preliminary delimitation of constituencies in which it revised the National Assembly seats from 342 to 336.

According to the ECP’s preliminary report, the number of general seats in the NA will decrease from 272 to 266. Balochistan will have 16 general seats in the NA, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will have 45, Punjab 141, Sindh 61, three seats will be of Islamabad. Seats of erstwhile federally administered tribal areas have been merged with KP. On the other hand, women will have 60 reserved seats while minorities will have 10 seats.

A National Assembly constituency in KP has been demarcated at 788,933 people, Islamabad 667,789, Punjab 780,069, Sindh 784,500, and Balochistan 77,946. KP’s NA will begin with Chitral from NA-1 to NA-45. Seats from Islamabad will be from NA-46 to NA-48, Punjab’s constituencies will start from Attock’s NA-49 and end at NA-189 in Rajanpur. Furthermore, Sindh’s lower house seats will start from NA-190 Jacobabad and continue till NA-250 Karachi, while Balochistan’s constituencies will be from NA-251 to NA-266.

The Balochistan Assembly will have 65 seats overall out of which 51 will be general seats, while KP Assembly will have 145 seats out of which 115 will be general seats. Punjab will have 371 seats out of which 297 will be general seats while the Sindh Assembly will have 168 seats out of which 130 will be general seats. The ECP said that a constituency of KP Assembly will consist of 308,713 voters, Punjab Assembly 370,336, Sindh Assembly 368,112 and Balochistan Assembly 241,864.