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ISLAMABAD: The number of voters belonging to religious minorities in the country has climbed to 3.63 million from 2.77m registered in electoral rolls for the 2013 general elections — registering an increase of 0.860m or 30 per cent in five years.
According to the latest official document available with Dawn, Hindu voters continue to maintain their majority among the minorities, but they no more constitute over half of total non-Muslim voters as was the case in 2013.
Read: Problems with the electoral representation of non-Muslims
The number of Hindu voters before 2013 polls was 1.40m while total number of voters of minority communities was 2.77m — the former being higher than the collective number of all other minorities. The number of Hindu voters now stands at 1.77m. They are mostly concentrated in Sindh where in two districts they form over 40 per cent of total registered voters.
Document makes no mention of Jewish voters, although in 2013 there were 809 of them
Christians form the second largest group of non-Muslim voters, totalling 1.64m with over 1m settled in Punjab followed by over 200,000 in Sindh. Their number has grown at a relatively high pace as compared to Hindu voters as it was 1.23m before 2013 general polls.
The total number of Ahmadi voters is 167,505 — most of whom dwell in Punjab, followed by Sindh and Islamabad. The number in 2013 stood at 115,966.
Of the total 8,852 Sikh voters, most are settled in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa followed by Sindh and Punjab. Their presence in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas is more than their combined strength in Balochistan and Islamabad. They numbered 5,934 in 2013.
The number of Parsi voters has grown from 3,650 in 2013 to 4,235. Majority of them is settled in Sindh followed by KP. The number of Buddhist voters has increased from 1,452 in 2013 to 1,884. Most of them live in Sindh and Punjab.
There are a total of 31,543 voters from the Bahai community on the electoral rolls.
The document obtained by Dawn makes no mention of Jewish voters in Pakistan, though in 2013 there were 809 Jewish voters in the country — 427 women and 382 men.
While the district-wise data of non-Muslim voters is yet to be prepared, according to official statistics related to 2013 elections, Umerkot and Tharparkar districts in Sindh had as high percentage as 49pc and 46pc of total voters, respectively. In Umerkot, there were a total of 386,924 voters of whom 189,501 belonged to religious minorities. In Tharparkar, out of a total of 473,189 voters, 219,342 were non-Muslim.
In Mirpurkhas, the total number of voters was 590,035 and among them 192,357 (33pc) were non-Muslim. In Tando Allahyar, 74,954 non-Muslims constituted 26pc of total 288,460 voters.
In Tando Mohammad Khan, 39,847 non-Muslims accounted for 17pc of total 231,522 voters. In Matiari, 81,589 non-Muslims constituted 13pc of total 302,265 voters. In Karachi’s South district, total number of voters was 1,070,321 and among them 81,589 (8pc) were non-Muslim. In Ghotki and Hyderabad, 41,031 and 62,243 non-Muslims accounted for 7pc of total 571,636 and 928,236 voters, respectively.
In Chiniot and Lahore districts of Punjab, 35,335 and 247,827 non-Muslims constituted 6pc of total 604,991 and 4,424,314 voters, respectively.
In Jamshoro and Kashmore districts of Sindh, 18,912 and 17,495 non-Muslims were 5pc of total 373,097 and 355,904 voters, respectively.
Published in Dawn, May 28th, 2018
Comments (35) Closed
What about nondenominational voters?
This is good news.
Diversity is Awesome!
Great awareness!
Good. If you your opinion to be heard, you have to be political and cast vote.
But this all will be futile if there is no free and fair election.
Religious profiling is not a good idea.
Only 8852 sikh?
The percentage rise in Ahmadi voters is largest, despite the fact that many have already left Pakistan during the past 5 years.
They should not have separate electorate. They should have the chance to become Pm.
Whole punjab belongs to Sikh, but they are only 8800.
Good news for imran khan as most non muslims vote for him
Now plan the persecution accordingly
@Prateik: you are right if that is used in negative way. Situation is different in Pakistan. For instance, there are 272 general (directly elected) seats in NA plus 10 (non-elected) seats are for minorities (from all over Pakistan) and 60 seats for women (divided between provinces). Thus, Muslims can only get elected on general seats, but non-Muslims and women are not restricted to quota (10 + 60) 70 seats, as they can also get elected on general seats.
It means, even if minorities and women do not get elected on general seats (though some do get elected), they would still going to have representation in Assembly. Number of minorities in census is needed as that determines how many seats certain minority would have on 10 quota seats.
Similarly, in each provincial assembly there are quotas for minorities and women. Minority quota in Punjab: 8 seats, Sindh: 9 seats, KP: 3 seats and Baluchistan: 3 seats.
Great news. We have a good number of minorities. Mashallah.
Minorities in Pakistan are very much accepted by the governmen than minorities in India where government is killing them.
This is of serious concern.
What a non-event news. Only our discriminating constitution gives rise to such pointless data. Let's please just grow up and get out of this.
@Akbar Ghous -- Diversity is Awesome .
Agreed, but to be vibrant minorities should total for at least 25%, still there is a way to go in Pakistan for minorities. In contrast minorities are around 27%.
Hindus population in Pakistan was 20% but people fail to realize the fact that 19% of them were living in the than East Pakistan it’s even clearly written on census results of 1951 so after bangladesh got Independence those 19% of hindus remained there Infact Pakistan hindu population Increased from 20 lakh in 1998 to 36 lakh in 2017
This is all the game of numbers. The ground reality must be very different.
The pie chart is in which scale..looking at the pie chart it seems that minority voters constitute about 30% of the total voters..
I feel something very fishy is going on. Every foreign source has listed the number of minorities in Pakistan to decrease, however just before the elections, we fantastically have a rise in minority voters, this is very strange. Pre-poll rigging maybe?
The figures and areas in graph are not proportional.
Looks lke something is wrong with pie chart. green should be 96.5% and rest in 3.5% but doesnt look like the case. Is it in log scale ? or an attempt to show a rosy picture !!
It is not that population of minorities have increased, it is only they are getting access to voting now. Thanks to democracy
@Awan Sahib Where have they gone?
So is this how a pie chart representation would be to illustrate a 97-3 ratio in Pakistan?
diversity is a strength, this is what the west has found. We need to be mindful to protect our minorities from those who try to harm them.
I hope they continue to grow in numbers and opportunities..
@BhaRAT so you are telling me that only one percent Hindus were living in the previous West Pakistan after independence, that is less than the Christian population. Very hard to believe this statistics.
@Irfan_Sydney "@BhaRAT so you are telling me that only one percent Hindus were living in the previous West Pakistan after independence....very hard to believe this statistics."
Contrary to what many Indians insist on stating, the percentage of Hindus in Pakistan has remained constant at 1.6% since independence (in other words, the number of Hindus has multiplied at the same quite high rate as the rest of Pakistan's population). The percentage of Hindus in the 1951 census of West Pakistan was 1.6%; this is exactly what it was in the 1998 census. Pew Research predicts it will rise to 2% by 2050 (i.e., grow faster than Muslims).
In 1951, Hindus formed 12.9% of Pakistan's population; many Indians use this to imply a massive diminution in Hindu numbers in Pakistan. But, this figure of 12.9% is because 22% of East Pakistan's (now Bangladesh's) then larger population was Hindu. The overwhelming majority of Hindus were in the East; the West had only a small fraction of the Hindu population.
The graph is not to scale, makes it appear as if the minorities are 1/3rd of the total electorate. However despite the so-called rise they still make around 4% of the total.
Great news, which proves better progress, development and prosperity for minorities in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
There goes the theory put out by some, that minorities are declining because they are leaving. Their lies exposed once again.