Rural Islamabad’s representative in the National Assembly, Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry, is the new rising star in the ruling PML-N and the envy of many in the right-of-the-centre party. His fast ascension is said to have left even the old guards in the inner sanctum of the party gasping.

With just two terms in electoral politics, how did he manage to create a niche for himself at the top when much older loyalists struggle for just catching the attention of the Prime Minister’s Office, wonder party’s lower ranks?

Background discussions with a number of party officials both of local and national chapters reveal a bit of a mystery.

Dr Chaudhry, a physician by training but a realtor by trade, emerges from the discussions a man who has learned realpolitik fast. ‘Money makes the mare go’, as they say.

This fundamental reality of today’s politics the world over is claimed to have endeared him to the party head honchos. Dr Chaudhry has big property in Islamabad’s posh F-8 sector, and deep pockets too.

A well-connected official of the PML-N Islamabad said the Sharif brothers recognise and value that MNA Chaudhry never hesitated to spend for the party’s causes. That willingness earned him the Sharifs’ trust and position in the party. “Very few people know that it was Chaudhry sahib who took care of the party’s financial needs without hesitance and throughout,” the party official told Dawn.

Well established in the real estate business, Dr Chaudhry entered politics in 2008. That year he got elected MNA from NA-49 constituency of Islamabad and established his credentials by keeping that seat in the May 2013 general elections. “People may fault his politics but he played it right. The Sharifs don’t forget who invested how much in promoting the party,” said the PML-N official. “There is no secret about their preference for businessmen.”

Many in the PML-N had squirmed when Dr Chaudhry was appointed Minister of State for Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) on the eve of the local bodies’ election in the Islamabad Capital Territory during the last week of November. With that the control of the mighty Capital Development Authority (CDA) shifted from the Cabinet Division to the minister.

“That shift was a clear message to the voters to poll for candidates of Dr Chaudhry’s choice who was leading the PML-N’s campaign, invested with the authority to decide whose election promises are fulfilled,” said a second PML-N source, who too did not want to be named.

Although the PML-N emerged the leading party in the Islamabad local elections, PTI was not much behind. Against the 21 union councils won by the PML-N, the PTI bagged 16 union councils. That was a biting contrast for the ruling PML-N which won the local elections with massive margins in its home province of Punjab.

Still, the party leadership did not admonish Dr Chaudhry for “unsatisfactory performance” as it did some local PML-N leaderships elsewhere.

On the contrary, Dr Chaudhry got sort of a pat on the back when the federal government gave him additional charge of the polio eradication campaign in the national capital – something closer to his original profession but more of a political issue in the unfortunate environment of extremism.

Some attribute Dr Chaudhry’s rise in the PML-N to the eclipse of Aqeel Anjum. He too is in the property business but, unlike Dr Chaudhry, the old party worker Anjum lost his National Assembly seat in the neighbouring NA-48 constituency in the 2013 general elections – and with that his political moorings and prestige, it seems.

Worse, according to a colleague of Dr Chaudhry in the National Assembly, Aqeel Anjum’s health problems prevent him from soldiering on.

Above all, say government functionaries in the Prime Minister’s Office, Dr Chaudhry now belongs to the young PML-N brigade, which include MNAs Talal Chaudhry and Daniyal Aziz and works in close coordination with Maryam Nawaz Sharif.

“Dr Chaudhry is at her beck and call all the time, ever ready to carry out the task assigned to him by Ms Sharif,” said one official.

Published in Dawn, January 15th, 2016