Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi

Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi (Urdu, ; born 1 November 1945) is a Pakistani politician who is the former Chief Minister of Punjab.

Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi was born 1 November 1945 in Gujrat, Punjab to industrialist Chaudhry Manzoor Elahi.

He hails from a family of politicians and industrialists of Gujrat.

They belong to a Punjabi Jat family of the Warraich clan.

His father Chaudhry Manzoor was non-political, unlike his younger brother Chaudhry Zahoor, concentrating on his business in the textile industry, being active in Ludhiana and then Amritsar after earning his B.Sc. Engineering but having to move back to his native village of Natt in Gujrat due to the 1947 partition.

He had two daughters and three sons: Pervaiz, Javed, who looked after the family business, and Sabahat, who has resided in Thailand, being engaged in carpet manufacturing.

Pervaiz received his early education from Forman Christian College, Lahore until 1967 and later attended Watford College of Technology from where he received his Diploma in Industrial Management.

Pervaiz is a cousin of former Prime Minister of Pakistan Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and is married to his sister, with whom he has two sons, Moonis Elahi and Rasikh Elahi.

While his younger son Moonis is also a well known politician, his elder son Rasikh has been described as “a Sufi religious scholar, who avoids politics and public appearances.”

Pervaiz began his political career after being elected as the chairman of the district council of Gujrat for four years in 1983.

He served as Provincial Minister for Local Government and Rural Development for eight years from 1985 to 1993.

He was elected as a member of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab for the first time in 1985, again in 1988, 1990, and 1993.

He also served as the acting leader of the opposition in the Provincial Assembly of Punjab from 1993

Several cases were registered against Pervaiz during Benazir Bhutto's government in 1993-1996 and he was sent to Adiala Jail where he spent several months.

He enjoyed the services of Mentorship of Barrister Ijaz Hussain Batalvi and his legal team including M.A. Zafar, Nawaz Bhatti and Akhtar Aly Kureshy Advocates.

He also appointed Akhtar Aly Kureshy as legal Advisor to Provincial Assembly of the Punjab when he was Speaker Punjab Assembly.

His brother-in-law Ashraf Marth, who served as the SSP Gujranwala, was assassinated in 1997 by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi militants.

Outside Chaudhry Shujaat, his brothers and their sons, Pervaiz’s other relatives in politics include Chaudhry Tajamal Hussain, the cousin of his father who has been an MNA, and whose own son Chaudhry Mubashar Hussain is a politician as well.

It was reported that Nawaz Sharif had promised Pervaiz that if PML-N won the 1997 Pakistani general election, Pervaiz would be made the chief minister of Punjab.

However, when PML-N won the 1997 general elections, Nawaz appointed his brother Shahbaz Sharif as the Chief Minister of Punjab.

To avoid the impression that Pervaiz was unhappy with this decision of Nawaz Sharif, Pervaiz supported Shahbaz Sharif for the position of Chief Minister, however, he decided not to join the provincial cabinet of Shahbaz Sharif.

He was re-elected as a member of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab for the fifth time in 1997 and was elected as the speaker of Provincial Assembly of Punjab in 1997 where he remained until June 2001.

Following the 1999 military coup, he was detained by the National Accountability Bureau on corruption charges.

The charges were dropped following an agreement he made to quit the Pakistan Muslim League (N), whose part he had been until the ouster of the PML-N government, and assist President Pervez Musharraf in building PML-Q.

He along with his cousin Shujaat and other dissidents left PML-N to form their own party, PML-Q.

After a successful campaign in the 2002 general elections, he became the Chief Minister of Punjab and held this position until 2007.

He was re-elected as a member of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab for the sixth time in the 2002 Pakistani general election.

Following the elections, Pervaiz was elected as the chief minister of Punjab for the first time, an office he served from October 2002 until October 2007.

Chaudhry Manzoor died in 2005, at the age of 90.

In 2008, he briefly served as the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly of Pakistan.

He remained a member of the National Assembly for two terms, from 2008 to May 2018.

In the 2008 Pakistani general election, Pervaiz was elected as a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan for the first time and as a member of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab for the seventh time.

He served as the First Deputy Prime Minister of Pakistan in 2013.

He was a member of the Provincial Assembly of the Punjab from August 2018 till January 2023, when he, as chief minister, dissolved the assembly.

In 2023, he left the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) (PML(Q)) and joined Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) along with his son, Moonis Elahi, and 10 other former PML(Q) MPAs over political rifts with the party president and cousin, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain.

He was appointed president of the PTI.

He was the former president of the Punjab Division of the PML(Q).

He has also been the Speaker of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab from 2018 to 2022.

In a major development in late February 2023, Pervaiz Elahi announced joining Imran Khan-led party along with 10 of his party's former MPAs.

On 7 March 2023, Pevaiz Elahi was appointed as President of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.