Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party President Abdul Aleem Khan has called for new provinces across the country, saying there is nothing wrong with dividing each of the four existing provinces into four administrative units (Geo News).
Aleem Khan, who is also federal minister for communications, said voices had been raised in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly for a separate Hazara province since 2010 and that major KP parties supported it. “The IPP stands with the demand for the Hazara province,” he said, adding support for South Punjab and Bahawalpur as separate provinces and noting similar demands in Punjab and Sindh.
He said current circumstances demanded a new working order and called on politicians to take ownership of the issue rather than protect their own fiefdoms. “Instead of protecting their dominance, they will have to think about the problems of the people.”
Rana Sanaullah, adviser to the prime minister on political affairs, was unimpressed. He said no plan had been formulated by the government, and that different people were proposing different numbers — some 12 provinces, some 20, some 32.
“Has Aleem Khan presented any plan regarding the provinces?” he asked, saying provinces could not be created by talking about them or discussing them on podcasts. He said the PML-N leadership had not discussed the matter recently, that the party’s thinking was that people’s problems should be resolved at their doorstep, and that outside Hazara there was no popular demand for new provinces anywhere.
The MQM-P has meanwhile announced plans for a “grand national dialogue” on the question, arguing that the existing provinces lack legal merit. Sanaullah noted that Mustafa Kamal’s proposal was confined to Karachi.
The constitutional bar is the recurring obstacle. Creating a province requires a two-thirds majority resolution from the assembly concerned and a two-thirds majority in parliament. Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah has rejected any division of his province, noting the Sindh Assembly has repeatedly and unanimously passed resolutions against it.
The debate was triggered by Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, who said the existing system had “collapsed” and called for new administrative units. He later said the system would complete its five-year term while standing by his description of it as “completely destroyed”, clarifying that he meant deterioration over 80 years. PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Khan has backed new provinces subject to consensus.
Naqvi’s colleagues have largely declined to follow him. The PPP has rejected the idea outright, and Defence Minister Khawaja Asif and Sanaullah have both distanced themselves — Sanaullah saying the remarks “made no sense” and that it was for Naqvi to take responsibility for what he intended to say.
