Born in Charsadda in 1962, Sirajul Haq joined the Jamaat-i-Islami’s student programme in eighth grade and rose through the party ranks to become the chief of its Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) chapter in 2003.
He served as the provincial finance minister after being elected from PK-95 Lower Dir in 2003, but later resigned after a US drone struck a seminary in the Bajaur tribal region in 2006.
He returned to the post in 2013 after securing yet another victory in Lower Dir. A year later, Haq was appointed as the fifth emir of the JI after Jamaat Arakeen (members with voting rights) voted out the sitting emir, Syed Munawwar Hasan, for the first time in the party’s history.
Compared to Hasan, Haq has tried to emulate the populist style of Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the JI chief who kept the party at the centre of the political arena between 1987-2009.
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