Amid the political chaos in the country, the Ministry of Law and Justice has submitted a summary to the Federal Cabinet which aims to create a new province.
According to details, the Ministry has also prepared the draft of the proposed constitutional amendment bill titled “Constitution 26th Amendment Bill 2022.”
The proposed constitutional amendment seeks the creation of a new province consisting of three divisions; Multan, Bahawalpur, and Dera Ghazi Khan.
The bill will be presented in Parliament after receiving approval from the Cabinet. If it receives the approval of Parliament, a new province will be formed which will be named “South Punjab.”
The South Punjab province will have 46 general and 10 reserved seats in the National Assembly while its Provincial Assembly will have 119 seats.
Interestingly, the incumbent Punjab Assembly has neither passed any resolution which calls for the creation of a new province nor the provincial Law Ministry has forwarded a similar summary to the provincial Cabinet.
It should be noted here that a two-thirds majority of the Parliament is required to amend the 1973 Constitution. In the prevailing political scenario, the incumbent Federal Government appears to be struggling to maintain a simple majority, let alone a two-third majority.
