Constitutional requirement of census lost to politics of ‘Muk Muka’: Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri

PAT chief Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri has said that the constitutional requirement of conducting consensus in the country has fallen victim to the politics of deal-making and ‘Muk Muka’. He asked how a state that remains oblivious of exact number of people living in its territory, could plan development and work out budget proposals. He said that if every work has to be done by the army, is looting the only job of the so-called democratic rulers?

Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri expressed these views while talking to the members of the Central Executive Committee on phone yesterday.

Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri said that conducting census every ten year is the constitutional responsibility of the government. He said that census is critical for division of NFC Award, new delimitations, determination of job quotas and working out population numbers but added in the same breath that continuous delay in the conduct of census on account of political reasons is akin to betrayal of the Constitution. He said that it appears that the present rulers would not allow the census to be conducted during the remaining tenure, adding that the Supreme Court will have to take notice of census like it did in case of the local government elections.

The PAT chairman said that the present rulers are experts in looting resources and would not do anything that hampers their politics and use of resources and which has anything to do with public welfare works and implementation of the Constitution.

Dr Qadri also took briefing from the PAT lawyers about the development of the Model Town case and regretted the fact that the trial court is conducting the trial of the case on the basis of desires of the rulers instead of dictates of rule of law. He said that if justice was not provided to the 14 martyrs of Model Town, we would plan next course of action.