Raja Pervaiz Ashraf: Personal and Political Journey

By Ahmed Farooq Jun 22nd, 2012 ( No Comment )

Islamabad: Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, main character in $ 5 billion Rental Power Scam, has been nominated as upcoming prime minister of Pakistan by the government and its allies.

A short bio of Raja is as follow:

Personal Life

Locals say his place of birth is Gaujar Khan’s union council Councalia
National Assembly website says his place of birth is Sanghar, Sindh and date of birth is December 25 1950
Raja Pervaiz is named after his uncle Col Ashraf who was a minister in former president Ayub Khan era
His family has no links with politics before his joining of politics
He matriculated from Gaujar Khan
After martic, he shifted to Sindh where some of his relatives have lands and where he learnt speaking Sindhi fluently
After six years he returned to Gaujar Khan
With his brothers, he set up a shoe factory at Gaujar Khan and later shifted to Islamabad in 1976-77
At the capital they started property business and got rich in a short period of time
Property business circle says, even presently Raja Pervaiz Ashraf’s investment of about Rs. 100 million has been on stake in the property market

Political Life

Pervaiz Ashraf participated in 1985 non-party local elections
In 1988 he joined Pakistan Peoples Party
In 1989 bye-elections he was defeated by Nadir Pervaiz by 120 vote
During 1990 and 1993 national elections, he was defeated by joint candidate of Pakistan Muslim League and Jamaat-e-Islami
In 1997, he once again lost elections to PML (N) candidate
During era of former dictator General Pervaiz Musharraf, he was defeated by Raja Tariq Kayani n in District Nazim Rawalpindi
In national elections of 2002, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf defeated PML (N) candidate Chaudhry Zaman by 25000 votes
In 2008, he defeated PML (Q) candidate Qasim Javed
After PPP government, he was made minister for Water and Power
On rental scam, he was reshuffled to ministry of Information Technology