Daily Times

KARACHI: Soon after the removal of Qaim Ali Shah as the Sindh chief minister by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) media reports started circulating about the possible candidate to replace him.

Even though reports about imminent reshuffle in the Sindh cabinet were flowing on the media, the fate of the chief minister was not mentioned and it appeared that even Qaim was not aware of his dismissal when he landed in the United Arab Emirates on Saturday for a meeting with PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari.

A senior PPP leader, requesting anonymity, told the reporters that because of his old age Qaim “is not moving with the pace of time as he was supposed to”. He also said that Qaim  was “too soft” on certain issues, which included the current controversy surrounding the Rangers’ special powers in the provincial capital.

The 83-year-old Qaim, who was also the provincial president of PPP since 2004 until earlier this year when PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto dissolved all provincial bodies, had several times dodged the attempts to replace him in the past.

Zardari shot down every proposal to remove him. But now that the seemingly impossible has been done, a new debate has surrounded the political analysts and commentators on which politician will be handed over the command of Sindh.

Here are some possible names that could be considered for the responsibility and their brief biography:

Syed Murad Ali Shah

The most echoed name as the possible nomination is of the PPP lawmaker and Provincial Finance Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah. The 53-year-old politician was born in 1962 in Karachi and is an engineer by profession. He began his professional career as a junior engineer in the federal government with Wapda in 1986.

He had also been an adviser to the chief minister and has been returning to the Sindh Assembly from the Jamshoro constituency PS-73 since its creation in the 2002 general elections. He has been elected twice from the same seat, once in 2002-2007 and again during by-polls in 2014.

He was disqualified from the 2013 general election as he held dual (Canadian) citizenship at the time which he later renounced so he could contest the by-polls in 2014. He had previously held positions in the Hyderabad Development Authority and Karachi Fish Harbour Authority.

Manzoor Wassan

Sindh minister and member of provincial assembly Manzoor Wassan was born in 1957 in Khairpur. He is a landlord by profession and holds a bachelors of arts degree and an LLB from Sindh University Jamshoro. His political career began when he was first elected to Sindh Assembly in 1990 and served until 1993, representing the Khairpur PS-32 constituency.

He has alternated his time between the National Assembly and Sindh Assembly since then, serving in the former from 1993 to 1997, and 2002 to 2007, and returning to the Sindh Assembly from 1997 to 1999 and most recently in 2008 to 2013.

His nephew Nawab Ali Wassan is also a politician who has also served in both the National Assembly and the Sindh Assembly. Manzoor currently serves as the Sindh Minister of Prisons, Mines and Mineral Development.

Suhail Anwar Siyal

Another PPP lawmaker and Sindh Home Minister Suhail Anwar Siyal was appointed to the post in 2015.

He was born in Faridabad village, which is situated some 15 kilometres from Larkana – the birth place of former prime minister and founder of PPP, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

He received his primary and secondary education in Larkana, passed higher secondary school certificate exam from Hyderabad and did his graduation from Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro, in civil engineering, according to his cousin Advocate Shahid Iqbal.

He remained Bakrani Taluka PPP president for some time and contested the general election from PS-35 as an independent candidate in 2013 after he was refused a party ticket. In 2014, he won the PS-35 by-polls on a PPP ticket by defeating Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) candidate Shafqat Hussain Unnar.

His uncle, Ghulam Sarwar Siyal, had also served as a lawmaker in the provincial assembly in 2008. He was a close relative of the late advocate Illahi Bakhsh Siyal, the then Dokri taluka PPP president. He was so close to the PPP that former prime minister Benazir Bhutto mentioned him in her book ‘Daughter of the East’, his cousin said.

Agha Siraj Durrani

Sindh Assembly Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani is believed to be among the most trusted friends of Asif Zardari.

He was born in the mid-1950s and did his matric from Karachi’s St Patrick’s School in 1971. He received his bachelor of commerce degree from Karachi and like his elderly colleague and possible predecessor, Qaim, Durrani got his LLB degree from Karachi’s Sindh Muslim Law College.

He defeated Mir Murtaza Bhutto in the 1993 elections but in the 1997 elections lost to Nadir Khan Kumario. This was for the first time in Durrani’s PPP-affiliated career that he lost. He was arrested in 1990 on charges of embezzlement during (the then prime minister) Nawaz Sharif’s first government and was jailed for some time. PPP termed it part of political vendetta.

He has also been a local government minister in the previous PPP government and is the third member of his family to have served as the Sindh Assembly’s speaker. With his appointment as the speaker, his family has become the first to have three men presiding on the provincial assembly through generations. He has been married to one of the sisters of Pir Pagaro Sibghatullah Shah for some 20 years.