KARACHI: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan has thrown its weight behind the growing campaign for additional administrative units, with party chairman Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui declaring that restructuring Pakistan’s existing provinces is the country’s “destiny”.
Siddiqui argued that Pakistan’s population and administrative requirements had outgrown the existing four-province structure and said constitutional provisions allowed changes to provincial boundaries.
The MQM-P’s intervention adds another significant voice to a debate that has intensified in recent days after federal ministers Khawaja Asif and Mohsin Naqvi publicly advocated greater devolution and reconsideration of the existing administrative structure.
The Pakistan Peoples Party has reacted strongly to suggestions that Sindh could be divided, maintaining that any change to provincial boundaries must have the consent of the province concerned.
Supporters of additional provinces argue that smaller administrative units could improve governance and bring government closer to citizens, while opponents fear that redrawing provincial boundaries could inflame ethnic and political tensions.
No formal constitutional proposal has yet been presented by the federal government, leaving the debate at the stage of competing political proposals.