Jahangir Tareen
Born in Comilla, Tareen was educated at the Forman Christian College in Lahore, and later attended the University of North Carolina.
Prior to entering politics, he had been a lecturer and banker. Tareen began his political career when he served as the special adviser on agriculture and social sector initiatives to the then Chief Minister of Punjab, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, before being appointed the Federal Minister for Industries and Production where he served from 2004 to 2007 in the Shaukat Aziz ministry. In 2011, he joined PTI and became its General Secretary where he served until December 2017. On 8 June 2023, he launched his own political party, Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party (IPP). On 12 February 2024, he resigned from IPP and decided to leave politics.
Early life and education
Jahangir Tareen was born on 4 July 1953 in the city of Comilla, which back then was part of East Bengal in Pakistan, but is now located in Bangladesh. However, although the Tareen family was stationed over here at the time, they originally hailed from South Punjab, specifically near Multan and came from a Pashtun family that belongs to the Tareen tribe of Pashtuns.
Tareen’s father, Allah Nawaz Tareen, was a police officer who retired as a Deputy Inspector General. His mother, Zahida Khan Tareen, died in 2004. His younger brother, Alamgir Tareen, a businessman who operated one of the largest water purification plants in the country and who was also the founder and owner of the Multan Sultans franchise in the Pakistan Super League, committed suicide in 2023, at the age of 63.
His paternal cousin, Shaukat Tarin, is a banker who has served as the country's Finance Minister twice, including under Imran Khan from 2021 - 2022.
His maternal cousins include Humayun Akhtar Khan and Haroon Akhtar Khan, both influential politicians and the sons of General Akhtar Abdur Rahman, who served as the DG-ISI under Zia-ul-Haq.
He graduated from Forman Christian College, Lahore in 1971 and received an MBA degree from the University of North Carolina, USA, in 1974.
He is an entrepreneur by profession and prior to entering in politics, he had also been a lecturer, and a banker. 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.
Tareen is considered one of the wealthiest politicians in Pakistan, with assets worth around Rs 400 billion; he owns thousands of acres of farmland and some of the largest sugar mills and many other business entities in Pakistan.
Political career
In an interview with Newsweek Pakistan, Tareen said he “Doesn’t belong to a political family, but he married into one.” He married Amina Tareen, the daughter of Syed Hasan Mahmood and the sister of Makhdoom Ahmed Mehmood, both having been seasoned politicians, especially influential, in the Rahim Yar Khan District of Punjab, where the family has "considerable, spiritual and feudal influence."
He began his political career in 2002 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).
He served as special adviser on agriculture and social sector initiatives to then Chief Minister of Punjab Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi. In August 2004, he was inducted into the federal cabinet and was made Federal Minister for Industries and Production in the Shaukat Aziz ministry where he remained until 2007. His sugar mills flourished during his tenure as Minister for Industries.
In the 2008 Pakistani general election, Tareen was re-elected as a member of the National Assembly for the second time from Constituency NA-195 on the seat of Pakistan Muslim League (F).
He was the parliamentary leader of PML-F in the National Assembly. Later, he formed a forward block known as "Tareen's group" which comprised several seasoned politicians. In 2011, he said he was to launch his own political party consisting of politicians free from corruption charges. He later resigned from the National Assembly and in November 2011, joined Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf along with a number of associates, saying that his vision was similar to PTI's.
In September 2013, Imran Khan appointed Tareen as the Secretary General of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.
In the 2013 Pakistani general election, Tareen ran for a seat on the National Assembly from Constituency NA-154 (Lodhran) on the seat of PTI, but was unsuccessful. Where has heavily invested.
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. The seat became vacant after Tareen filed a petition in which he made accusations of irregularities in the constituency during the 2013 general election.
Controversies
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". In 2017, ECP rejected disqualification references against Tareen.
On 15 December 2017, the Supreme Court of Pakistan disqualified Tareen from serving as a member of parliament under Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution due to dishonesty in financial declarations. It also noted that he had engaged in conduct that could have been prosecuted as insider trading, but he was protected from such prosecution due to a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan. A subsequent judgment held that disqualification under Article 62(1)(f) is for life, but Tareen claimed that this judgment did not apply in his case.
However, on 8 January 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that the lifetime disqualification was beyond the scope of Article 62(1)(f) and therefore, Tareen became eligible to contest the 2024 elections.
Personal life
Tareen married Amina Mehmood (now Amina Tareen), the daughter of cricket patron Syed Hasan Mehmood, in 1978. They have four children, three daughters (Meher Tareen Sheikh, Seher Tareen and Maryam Tareen) and a son, businessman and owner of the Pakistani cricket team Multan Sultans, Ali Tareen.