Jahangir Khan Tareen


Jahangir Khan Tareen is a Pakistani business magnate and Sugar Baron who is the majority shareholder & CEO of JDW Group, a Conglomerate specialised in Sugar Manufacturing and have four sugar units, unit-2, unit-3, unit-4), Biomass Co-Generation Power and have two power units, unit-2), Paper manufacturing, Sugarcane Corporate Farming on 30,000 acres of land and Aviation services. Jahangir Khan Tareen is also the Chairman and owner of JK Group, a Conglomerate specialised in Sugar Manufacturing, and have two sugar units, unit-2), Milk Production & Processing and Sugarcane Corporate Farming. He is also the Chairman and owner of United Foods Pvt Ltd. Khan has been a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan thrice between 2002 and 2017. 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 is considered as the right hand and the most important advisor of PM Imran Khan.
Tareen began his political career in 2002. He served as special adviser on agriculture and social sector initiatives to then Chief Minister of Punjab Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi before being appointed as 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.
Tareen is the least tax payers as a parliamentarian in Pakistan.

Early life and education

Tareen was born on 4 July 1953 in Comilla, East Pakistan. 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 has 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 Rs1,050 billion; he owns thousands of acres of farmland and some of the largest sugar mills and many other business entities in Pakistan. He owns private planes which he often offers to PTI key leadership for traveling. He inherited his first sugar mill in Rahim Yar Khan from his father-in-law Makhdoom Hasan Mehmood, who was a politician in the 1970s and 1980s.

Political career

In an interview with Newsweek Pakistan, Tareen said "he doesn't belong to a political family, but he married into a political family".
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.
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 the member of the National Assembly for the second time from Constituency NA-195 on the seat of Pakistan Muslim League.
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.
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 the seat of the National Assembly from Constituency NA-154 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 on the seat of PTI. The seat became vacant after Tareen filed a petition in which he accused of irregularities in the constituency during the 2013 general election.
Tareen was disqualified by the Supreme Court of Pakistan from holding public office on 15 December 2017. On the same day, he ceased to be a member of the National Assembly. The next day, he resigned as Secretary General of PTI. In April 2018, the Supreme Court in a verdict declared Tareen ineligible to hold office for life.

Controversies

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