Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Friday presented a constitutional amendment bill to National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser with regards to creating South Punjab as the fifth province of Pakistan by splitting the pre-existing province into two.
FM Qureshi maintained that he had presented the bill on Prime Minister Imran Khan’s order and that the establishment of South Punjab as a province was part of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf’s election manifesto.
At the request of Qureshi, the speaker decided to make the bill a part of the house’s agenda for Monday, March 28.
“Today we have fulfilled another promise made to the people of South Punjab”, Qureshi said.
Deputy Speaker Qasim Khan Suri was also present at the occasion.
Earlier this week, the incumbent government circulated a summary for the cabinet’s approval to amend the Constitution in order to split the Punjab province and create a fifth province of Pakistan amid serious political crisis and questions over its majority in the National Assembly.
The South Punjab province – proposed to comprise of three divisions – will have 56 seats of the National Assembly and the new provincial assembly will have 119 seats, according to the draft bill moved to create the fifth province of Pakistan.
The Ministry of Law and Justice on Thursday circulated the Constitution Amendment Bill 2022 for the approval of the federal cabinet for the creation of a separate new province comprising Multan, Bahawalpur and Dera Ghazi Khan divisions called South Punjab, according to the cabinet’s summary.
Prime Minister Imran Khan has chosen to seek the cabinet’s nod through circulation instead of bringing the summary in the regular cabinet meeting for discussion and then approval.
