Makhdoom Shahabuddin
Makhdoom Shahabuddin is a Pakistani politician and was a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan who has held federal ministerial portfolios for finance, health and textiles. He has been elected as MNA from constituency NA-194 three times in the 1990, 1993 and 2008 Pakistani general elections.
He is from Mian Wali Qureshian, Rahim Yar Khan, a town in the Saraiki belt of southern Punjab and his political affiliation is with the Pakistan Peoples Party.
Political career
Makhdoom Shahabudin has been involved with the Pakistan Peoples Party since the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto regime in the 1970s, when his father Makhdoom Hameed-ud-Din was amongst the party's founding members and later served as federal minister under Bhutto. Shahabuddin has been one of the senior-most members in People's Party, having served in its central executive committee and as regional president for the party in South Punjab. He was considered especially close to the party's former leader, Benazir Bhutto. And after her assassination in 2008, he was recommended as the candidate for Prime Minister of Pakistan in the 2008 Pakistan elections. But Yousaf Raza Gillani was preferred by Mrs Bhutto's widower and eventual President Asif Ali Zardari.On 19 June 2012, in the aftermath of Yousaf Raza Gilani's conviction and disqualification by the Pakistan Supreme Court on contempt of court charges, Shahabuddin was appointed by the PPP as its candidate for the office of Prime Minister of Pakistan but the nomination was cancelled after a warrant for his arrest was issued by the ANF under suspicious circumstances upon the very day he was nominated.
He served as Federal Minister of Pakistan of Textiles under the Gilani government.
He is the descendant and successor of a famous Sufi saint, Sheikh Makhdoom Hameed-ud-Din Shah Hakim Al-Hashmi Suhrawardi and his mausoloem in Mao Mubarak, Rahimyar Khan. He is also closely related to Federal Minister Khusro Bakhtiar with whom he has contested elections with, for the National Assembly seat of NA-177 (RahimYarKhan-III).