Born in 1952, Syed Khurshid Ahmed Shah hails from Sindh’s Sukkur region, which he went on to represent as MPA and later as MNA. He studied at Sukkur’s Islamia College and obtained the degrees of MA and LLB.

He has been affiliated with Pakistan Peoples Party and has been elected MNA four times. In 2002, Shah was elected from NA-198 (Sukkur-cum-Shikarpur - I) and won from NA-199 (Sukkur-cum-Shikarpur – II) in the 2008 general election.

He was also elected to the Sindh Assembly in 1988 during which he was made a provincial minister holding a wide range of portfolios – education, import and transport being some of them. Shah also served as a federal minister for education during Benazir’s second government and recently for labour and manpower and religious affairs.

Shah enjoys an influential position in the party and was its chief whip in the 2008-2013 National Assembly. He is considered a trouble-shooter as far as relations with other parties are concerned, mainly on account of his good connections with all political parties.

During the 2008-2013 NA, he also headed the parliamentary committee on the appointment of the chief election commissioner. He was also among the candidates for the position of prime minister after the Supreme Court disqualified Yousuf Raza Gilani. Moreover, Shah was a member of the bipartisan panel which was tasked with forging a consensus on a name for caretaker prime minister prior to the 2013 general election. The panel was unsuccessful in accomplishing the task and the caretaker premier’s name was finalised by the Election Commission of Pakistan.

— Research and text by Saher Baloch