Malik Meraj Khalid

Who was Malik Meraj Khalid?

Malik Meraj Khalid, was a Pakistani left wing statesman and Marxist philosopher who served as the acting Prime Minister of Pakistan from November 1996 until February 1997. He was noted an being one of the original philosopher and founding personality of the Pakistan Peoples Party.

Born in 1916 to a poor farming family in Punjab, British India, he graduated from the Islamia Law College in 1942 to start his legal practices by establishing his own law firm in 1948. Inspired by the communist literature published in Soviet Union, his initial public community work was aimed towards promoting the literacy in his native village. In 1967, he helped founded the PPP and ascended towards holding the highly important public offices. Responsible for administrating and maintaining the control of Punjab Province after the war with India in 1971, Meraj was succeeded law minister in 1974 and the Speaker of the National Assembly in two non-consecutive terms.

However, his tough and rigorous hard left ideas led to developing political differences with Benazir Bhutto in the 1990s and was sacked by Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 1996 after leveling the accusations against Asif Zardari for the murder of Murtaza Bhutto. Disheartened by Benazir's decision, Meraj worked on to rallying the anti-Benazir Bhutto forces contributed to Nawaz Sharif and conservative's landslide 1997 victory in the parliamentary elections, but as prime minister Meraj continued to live his simple life and his Lahore home too remained as accessible as ever. In 2003, Meraj peacefully died in his resident in Lahore, and was buried with full state honor in a local cemetery.