A prominent Hindu lawmaker today introduced a bill in Pakistan's Parliament for constitutional amendments to give dual-voting rights to non-Muslims to elect members for national and provincial assemblies.
Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, the lawmaker from the ruling party PMLN, introduced the bill in the National Assembly.
Kumar, who is also Patron-in-Chief of Pakistan Hindu Council, while introducing the bill on the floor, said that non-Muslims must have right for dual vote, one for general seat and other for reserved seat.
"Besides changing the election criteria of reserved seats for Non-Muslims, it is also proposed to give the right to the Non-Muslims to cast double vote. This means dual franchise and enables Non-Muslims to cast one vote to a general seat candidate and the second to a member of their own community," according to the bill draft.
"This way they would remain integrated with the mainstream politics and true representatives of their communities would surface."
While citing examples of Jordan, Lebanon, India and New Zealand, he emphasised that religious and ethnic minorities must be elected through direct vote, not selected on the bases of personal liking and disliking of political parties or their leadership.
"In 2002, when the general seats were increased from 207 to 272, the reserved seats for non-Muslims remained the same," the PMLN lawmaker said, adding that reserved seats must be increased according to the proportion of population.
He also asked to discourage the unjust current practice by the victories parties to pick their blue-eyed representatives from the minorities.
In the context of upcoming Hindu religious festival Diwali, he demanded to take practical steps to provide advance salaries to Hindu employees of both public and private sector.
He also raised voice for making Diwali a public holiday in Pakistan to promote interfaith harmony.
