Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi چودھری پرویز الہی
Chief Minister of Punjab
In office 29 November 2002 – 22 November 2007
Preceded by	Dost Muhammad Khosa
Succeeded by	Shiekh Ejaz Nisar
Constituency	Gujrat

Born	November 1, 1945
Political party	Pakistan Muslim League (Q)
Residence	Lahore
Religion	Sunni Islam

Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi (Urdu: چودھری پرویز الہی) (born November 1, 1945) is a Pakistani politician. He was the Chief Minister of Pakistan's most populous province, Punjab, from 2002 to 2007.

1 Background
2 Education
3 Political career
4 2008 election
5 Named as suspect in Bhutto assassination attempt
6 References

[edit] Background

Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi is a son of Chaudhry Manzoor Elahi and nephew of late Pakistani politician Chaudhry Zahoor Elahi. He is from a political and business family, commonly referred to as Chaudhrys of Gujrat born into a Waraich family of Jats.

His cousin and brother-in-law, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, served as the Prime Minister of Pakistan from May to August 2004. He is the parliamentary leader of the ruling PML (Q) party. He is also the Punjab President of the PML-Q. Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi is known to be a very shrewd and tactical politician, who has over the years of his hard work, has earned the respect of many politicians around Pakistan. He is known for the tremendous amount of work he did during his tenure as the Chief Minister of Punjab as the province went under its most significant period of development during his reign. He is known for his work in the education, health and law sectors of the Punjab government.

[edit] Education

He studied at Forman Christian College completed graduation in 1967, and obtained a diploma in Industrial Management from the University of London. ^[1]

[edit] Political career

He became chairman of the Gujrat district council in 1983 and has been serving as an MPA (Member of Provincial Assembly) of the Provincial Assembly of the Punjab since 1985.

He served as Minister for Local Government and Rural Development during 1985-88, 1988-90 and 1990-93. He was Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Assembly during 1993-96, and also the Leader of the Opposition later. He was the Speaker of the Punjab Assembly during 1997-99.

In the elections of 2002, he was elected for a sixth consecutive term from two constituencies - PP-110 (Gujrat) and PP-292 (Rahim Yar Khan). On November 29, 2002, he was inducted as the Chief Minister of Punjab, serving until November 22, 2007, when the five-year mandate ended for the provincial assembly of Punjab. He is also the President of his political party, Pakistan Muslim League (Q) in Punjab. On 24 July 2006 he was elected, second time unopposed, the President of the PML for next three years.

This article or section needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone or spelling.
You can assist by editing it now. A how-to guide is available. (April 2008)

He has worked hard to improve agriculture and irrigation, education, health, IT, public sector development, infrastructure, supply of gas and electricity and law and order while serving as Chief Minister of Punjab. For the first time in Punjab, all citizens were offered all levels of health care and medical facilities completely free of cost.^[2]

Thousand of water courses were brick lined but now storage of water.^[3] For the first time in Lahore, traffic was controlled by traffic wardens and there was a great improvement in the rule of law and order around the province of Punjab. Ch. Pervaiz Elahi introduced the 1122 ambulance service, which has saved countless lives.^[4] Even his most fierce rivals have acknowledged his work, as he has earned their respect through his work in Punjab .^[5]

[edit] 2008 election

In the February 2008 parliamentary election, Elahi ran for the National Assembly as a PML-Q candidate, and it was believed that the party wanted him to become Prime Minister after the election, although it did not officially declare him as its candidate for the position.^[6] He ran for the seats NA-58 in Attock, NA-61 in Chakwal, and NA-187 in Bahawalpur,^[7] along with two provincial assembly seats.^[6] After the election, he was reported to have won the National Assembly seat in Attock but lost the other two.^[8]

Despite the PML-Q's defeat in the election, Elahi said that he thought the party had still performed well enough to take part in a future government.^[9] The party was left in opposition, however. Elahi was the PML-Q's candidate for Prime Minister following the election; in the parliamentary vote, held on March 24, 2008, he was defeated by Yousaf Raza Gillani of the PPP, receiving 42 votes against 264 for Gillani.^[10]

[edit] Named as suspect in Bhutto assassination attempt

After the suicide bomb attacks that killed hundreds of supporters during rallies immediately after her return to Pakistan from exile in 2007, the former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto named four persons, including former Intelligence Bureau Chief Ijaz Shah, Chaudhry Parvaiz Elahi, former Sindh Chief Minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim, and the former ISI chief Lt Gen (retd) Hamid Gul, as those who posed a threat to her life.^[11] Bhutto instructed a news reporter to reveal this in case she was assassinated.^[12]