Engineer and politician Ahsan Iqbal Chaudhary was born in Pakistan on March 28, 1959. He is currently the secretary general of the Pakistan Muslim League (N). He has been a member of Pakistan’s National Assembly since August 2018. From 1993 to 1999 and from 2008 until May 2018, he served as a member of the National Assembly.
From May 2018 to May 2017, he was the Abbasi government’s Minister of the Interior and Minister of Planning, Development, and Reforms. Leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), he held the positions of Pakistan’s Minister of Planning and Development and Deputy chairperson of the Planning Commission during the third Sharif administration.
He is a prominent member of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz). In the third Sharif administration, he held the positions of Minister of Planning and Development and Deputy Chairperson of the Planning Commission of Pakistan. In the Gillani administration in 2008, he briefly held the positions of Minister of Minorities and Minister of Education in Pakistan. From 1998 to 1999, during the second Sharif cabinet, he was the Deputy Chairperson of Pakistan’s Planning Commission. They assigned him the role of federal minister of planning and development on April 19, 2022.
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| Name | Mr. Ahsan Iqbal Chaudhary |
| Born | 28 March 1959 (age 64)Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan |
| Father’s Name | Iqbal Ahmed Chaupoliticiandhary |
| Mother | Nisar Fatima |
| Siblings | Mustafa Kamal |
| Children | Ahmed Iqbal Chaudhary |
| Material status | Married |
| Alma mater | University of Engineering and TechnologyWharton School of the University of PennsylvanNarowalia |
| Born City | Narowal |
| Profession | Politician |
| Religion | Islam |
| Country | Pakistan |
| Nationality | Pakistani |
| Party | Pakistan Muslim League (N) |
| Permanent Address | Iqbal Manzil, Jassar Bypass, Narowal |
| Local Address | H-205, Parliament Lodges, Islamabad |
| Contact Number | 0300-5012345 |
| Ahsan Iqbal Ch | |
| Constituency | NA-78(Narowal-II) |
| Oath Taking Date | 13-08-2018 |
Early Life and Family:
On September 28, 1958, Ahsan Iqbal Chaudhary was born. During the British Raj, his grandfather, Chaudhry Abdul Rahman Khan, served as a member of the Punjab Legislative Assembly and came from a Punjabi Rajput family. The family had to leave the Indian Punjab city of Jalandhar following the 1947 split.
In the general election held in Pakistan in 1985, his mother, Nisar Fatima, won one of the reserved seats for women in the National Assembly.
The Parks and Horticulture Authority’s (PHA) previous chairman was Mustafa Kamal, who is his brother.
Chaudhary received his initial formal education at the PAF College in Sargodha. In order to pursue a degree in mechanical engineering, he enrolled at the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, in 1976. He earned the degree in 1981. From 1984 to 1986, Chaudhary attended the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated with an MBA. He also studied at Georgetown University, Government College Lahore, and Harvard University.
Career:
As president of the University of Engineering and Technology’s student union, Ahsan Iqbal Chaudhary began his political career. He then became affiliated with Islami Jamiat Talaba, the right-wing Jamaat-i-Islami’s student branch. After winning the Narowal constituency NA-117, he was elected to the National Assembly for the first time in the 1993 general election in Pakistan. He worked as the then-prime minister of Pakistan’s policy and public affairs assistant in 1993.
In Pakistan’s general election of 1997, the people chose him to serve a second term as a member of the National Assembly. Chaudhary played a crucial role in various essential government positions when his party, the PML-N, obtained a commanding majority in the National Assembly for the first time in Pakistan’s history.
Ahsan Iqbal, selected as the Deputy Chairman of the Pakistani Planning Commission:
He served as chairman of the Pakistan Engineering Council and the National Steering Committees on Information Technology, IQM, and Productivity. Additionally, they chose him as the Deputy Chairman of the Pakistani Planning Commission with the rank of Minister of State. Until the Pakistani coup of 1999, in which Pervez Musharraf, then the Chief of Army Staff, toppled Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his existing elected administration, Chaudhary held the roles assigned to him. Ahsan Iqbal Chaudhary took the initiative to create Pakistan’s first national IT policy.
He lost the seat in the National Assembly in the general election in Pakistan in 2002. From 2000 to 2007, Ahsan Iqbal Chaudhary was a management professor at Islamabad’s Mohammad Ali Jinnah University under the Musharraf administration. Ahsan Iqbal Chaudhary is regarded as one of Nawaz’s adherents. The Chaudhary, a Nawaz Sharif ally, maintained the PML-N and PML during the Musharraf administration.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s departure, in response to the judgment in the Panama Papers case, led to the dissolution of the federal cabinet, which included Chaudhary Ahsan Iqbal, in July 2017. After Shahid Khaqan Abbasi became Pakistan’s new prime minister, he appointed Chaudhary Ahsan Iqbal to his federal cabinet. Iqbal assumed the role of interior minister. On September 16, 2017, he took on the additional responsibility of the Ministry of Planning and Development. As a result of the crackdown on the 2017 Tehreek-e-Labbaik demonstration, which forced Zahid Hamid, the minister of law and justice, to quit, he was criticized by Raza Rabbani, the chairman of the Pakistani Senate, in November 2017. Ahsan Iqbal Chaudhary stepped down from his positions as federal minister for the interior and federal minister for planning, development, and reform when the National Assembly was dissolved at the end of its term on May 31, 2018.
Ahsan Iqbal Chaudhary won a third term as a National Assembly:
Aahsan Iqbal Chaudhary won a third term as a National Assembly member in Pakistan’s general election of 2008. In the Gillani cabinet, he also held the position of Minister of Minorities’ Affairs in addition to his brief tenure as Pakistan’s Minister for Education. He resigned six weeks into the newly established PPP-led coalition government, however, after PML-N elected to sit on the opposition benches due to a disagreement with PPP on the reinstatement of the judges who had been fired by the former President Pervez Musharraf in 2007. Chaudhary was chosen to serve as the PML-N’s deputy secretary general in 2011.
Ahsan Iqbal Chaudhary was appointed to the central parliamentary board of the PML-N, which was responsible for choosing candidates for the general election in Pakistan in 2013. In the general election of 2013, Ahsan Iqbal Chaudhary was re-elected to the National Assembly for a fourth time. He was appointed as the Deputy Chairman of the Pakistani Planning Commission and the Minister of Planning and Development.
Due to his efforts to advance the Sustainable Development Goals, Ahsan Iqbal Chaudhary was chosen in February 2016 as the Asia-Pacific region’s “champion minister” by the United Nations Development Program.
As a PML-N candidate in the 2018 general election in Pakistan, he was re-elected to the National Assembly from Constituency NA-78 (Narowal-II). Abrar-ul-Haq was defeated by him with 159,651 votes.
He was taken into custody on December 23 by NAB on suspicion of corruption at the Narowal Sports Complex. After spending 90 days in detention, he was freed when the NAB was unable to establish a case against him.
Out of Danger:
The right arm and groyne of Iqbal were both struck by the gunshot, according to the police. Abid Hussain, 21, was identified as the alleged shooter, and authorities claimed they discovered him with a gun. Ahsan Iqbal Chaudhary was flown by helicopter to Lahore, the capital of Punjab, after being taken urgently to a nearby hospital. Talal Chaudhry, a junior interior minister, stated that the minister was fortunate to have lived. Thank God he is no longer in danger.
MNA, Federal Minister for Planning Development and Reform:
Mr. Iqbal served as a federal minister from 2017 to 2018 and as minister of planning from 2013 to 2017. In 1998–1999, while serving as the Planning Commission’s vice chairman, he created Vision 2010 for Pakistan, a guide for the long-term planning and management of the nation’s economy. Between 1990 and 2018, he was repeatedly elected to the National Assembly. In 1993, he served as the prime minister’s public policy assistant. Between 2000 and 2007, he taught management at Mohammad Ali Jinnah University, Islamabad, where he also played a vital role in the launch of various reform projects in the knowledge and promising governance sectors.
Along with serving as chairman of the Pakistan Engineering Board and the National Steering Committees on Information Technology and IQM and Productivity, Mr. Iqbal has also worked in engineering. In addition, he worked from 2004 to 2006 as a senior advisor for the Al-Madinah Al-Munawarah Digital Economy Project.
Ahsan Iqbal Chaudhary held a meeting with his Bangladeshi Counterpart:
Planning Minister Prof. Ahsan Iqbal met with Bangladesh’s Minister for Planning Mr. Muhammad Abdul Mannan, on the sidelines of the “First High-Level Conference of the Forum on Global Action for Shared Development,” which was hosted by the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) in Beijing. The two Ministers discussed continued bilateral economic cooperation, their respective development goals, and their plans to encourage student and young leader exchanges between their two nations.
Murder Attempt:
In 2018, while attending a political gathering in his native district of Narowal, he was injured. It seems to have been an attempt at murder. After being transferred, he underwent surgery in Lahore and stabilized there. There were Tehreek-e-Labbaik connections with the attacker, who was apprehended during the protest. In front of the police, he admitted that the Khatm-e-Nabuwat controversy was the reason behind his desire to murder Iqbal.
CPEC projects transforming Pakistan’s economic landscape:
In his discussions with business executives, the minister assured them that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif personally monitors the development of CPEC projects and that the new administration is determined to preserve the CPEC’s 2013–18 pace of growth. In addition, Ahsan Iqbal emphasized Pakistan and China’s unique and enduring connection and iron brotherhood. He stated that he wanted to strengthen interpersonal relationships so that people might learn more about the rich histories, diverse cultures, and stunning natural environments of both nations.
China’s ‘warning to Pakistani establishment’:
Ahsan Iqbal, the federal minister for planning and development, provoked a fresh uproar when he said Beijing had warned the Pakistani establishment against trying anything new before the 2018 general elections.
The PML-N leader amended his position on his statement after receiving a significant response on social media, claiming that his claim that Beijing had issued a warning to the establishment had been “taken out of context.” In a recent interview with a local news station, Ahsan Iqbal stated that according to his knowledge, China had warned the establishment to steer clear of any new experiments since they might have an impact on the flagship Pakistan-China project, CPEC. He brought up the allegation that a Chinese official had instructed officials not to meddle with the general elections.
Iqbal now clarifies that his remark against China was misconstrued. He claims that prominent businessmen working on CPEC projects, not Chinese officials, privately stated their opinion that involvement in the elections was inappropriate. Shah Mahmood Qureshi and other previous party leaders criticized Iqbal for making a careless statement. Such claims, according to Qureshi, are puzzling and demeaning. He further emphasized that PTI had always held a firm agreement over the advancement of CPEC.
Ahsan Iqbal Achievements:
After winning the Narowal constituency NA-117 in the general election of 1993 in Pakistan, he was elected to the National Assembly for the first time. He assisted Pakistan’s then-prime minister in policy and public affairs in 1993.
Ahsan Iqbal Associated with:
During Sharif’s second cabinet, from 1998 to 1999, he was the Deputy Chairman of Pakistan’s Planning Commission. Since 19 April 2022, he has been the federal minister of planning and development.
