MURREE, June 16: Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Member National Assembly from Murree, has been given the portfolio of the important Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources, while Member Punjab Assembly Raja Ashfaq Sarwar has been made provincial minister for minerals.

Shahid Khaqan Abbasi was first elected MNA in 1988 after the death of his father Khaqan Abbasi, the then federal minister for production. He was again elected in 1990 and made parliamentary secretary for defence.

In 1993, he was once again elected, and following the military coup in 1999, he was arrested by the Musharraf regime and remained in prison.

In the 2002 general elections, he lost to Murtaza Satti of the Pakistan People’s Party for the first time.

However, in 2008 he was once again victorious, and became a member of former premier Yousaf Raza Gilani’s cabinet as minister of production.

However, as the PML-N left the government, he too resigned. Shahi Khaqan Abbasi is also the owner of a private airline Airblue.

Raja Ashfaq Sarwar had been elected MPA and had become advisor to the then Chief Minister Punjab Mian Nawaz Sharif in 1988.

In 1990, he became provincial minister of forests and in 1997 he became minister of health in the cabinet of Shehbaz Sharif.

He did not contest the 2002 elections as he did not have a graduate degree, and in 2008, his cousin, Raja Fayaz Sarwar, contested the elections and became MPA.—Correspondent