Jahangir Khan Tareen

Tareen was born on 4 July 1953 in Comilla, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).[1] He graduated from Forman Christian College, Lahore in 1971[9] and received an MBA degree from the University of North Carolina, USA, in 1974.[1]

He is an entrepreneur by profession and prior to entering in politics, he has also been a lecturer, and a banker.[1] He headed the Punjab Task Force on Agriculture from 1997 to 1999 and the Punjab Task Force on Wheat Procurement and Marketing from 2001 to 2002.[1]

Tareen is considered one of the wealthiest politicians in Pakistan,[10] with assets worth around Rs 80 billion;[9] he owns thousands of acres of farmland and some of the largest sugar mills and many other business entities in Pakistan.[11] He owns private planes which he often offers to PTI key leadership for traveling.[11] He inherited his first sugar mill in Rahim Yar Khan from his father-in-law Makhdoom Hasan Mehmood,[12] who was a politician in the 1970s and 1980s.[11][13]

In an interview with Newsweek Pakistan, Tareen said "he doesn't belong to a political family, but he married into a political family".[14]

He began his political career in 2002[14][9] after he was elected to the National Assembly in the 2002 Pakistani general elections from Constituency NA-195 on the ticket of Pakistan Muslim League (Q).[1][15][10]

He served as special adviser on agriculture and social sector initiatives to then Chief Minister of Punjab Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi.[10][14] In August 2004, he was inducted into the federal cabinet[1] and was made Federal Minister for Industries and Production[10][16] in the Shaukat Aziz ministry where he remained until 2007.[11][9] His sugar mills flourished during his tenure as Minister for industries.[12]

In the 2008 Pakistani general election, Tareen was re-elected as the member of the National Assembly for the second time from Constituency NA-195 on the seat of Pakistan Muslim League (F).[15][17][9]

He was the parliamentary leader of PML-F in the National Assembly.[18] Later he formed a forward block known as "Tareen's group" which comprised several seasoned politicians.[19] In 2011, he said he was to launch his own political party consisting of politicians free from corruption charges.[9] He later resigned from the National Assembly[17] and in November 2011, joined Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf along with a number of associates, saying that his vision was similar to PTI.[9][18][20][21][22]

In September 2013, Imran Khan appointed Tareen as the Secretary General of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf[11][23]

In the 2013 Pakistani general election, Tareen ran for the seat of the National Assembly from Constituency NA-154 (Lodhran) on the seat of PTI, but was unsuccessful.[10][15][24] Where has heavily invested.[11][10]

In the 2015 by-elections, he was re-elected as a member of the National Assembly for the third time from Constituency NA-154 (Lodhran) on the seat of PTI.[24] The seat became vacant after Tareen filed a petition in which he accused of irregularities in the constituency during the 2013 general election.[25][26][27][28]

In 2016, PML-N filed a reference to disqualify Tareen from his National Assembly seat for "submitting false statements with the Election Commission of Pakistan".[29] In 2017, ECP rejected disqualification references against Tareen.[30]

• Jahangir Khan Tareen on Twitter