In Nawaz's shadow: Who is Shehbaz Sharif, the new Pakistan Prime Minister?

Shehbaz, the younger brother of the controversial former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif, has always lived in his big brother's shadow even though he served as the Chief Minister of Punjab three times - 1997, 2008, and 2013. His becoming the Prime Minister would mean Nawaz returning to Pakistan, with reports saying he will be back from London after Eid, leveraging the power his brother now has.

New Delhi: It has been a rough few weeks in Pakistan politics with pendulums at the highest tower swinging back and forth after former PM Imran Khan managed to create a major hullabaloo that saw the Supreme Court and National Assembly delivering verdicts and carrying out no-confidence motions in the dead of the night.

On Monday, the whirlwind finally rested when Imran Khan announced his resignation from the National Assembly and Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was elected as the next Prime Minister of Pakistan. Shehbaz, the younger brother of the controversial former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif, has always lived in his big brother's shadow even though he served as the Chief Minister of Punjab three times - 1997, 2008, and 2013.

His becoming the Prime Minister would mean Nawaz returning to Pakistan, with reports saying he will be back from London after Eid, leveraging the power his brother now has. Shehbaz was the one who, on March 28, tabled the no-confidence motion against Khan's government in the National Assembly. Shehbaz was born on September 23, 1951, to a Punjabi-speaking Kashmiri family. His father Muhammad Sharif was born in Jati Umra in Amritsar but the family was originally from Anantnag in Kashmir and had travelled and settled in Punjab. Muhammad Sharif married Shamim Akhtar, with whom he had three sons Nawaz, Shehbaz and Abbas. The family migrated to Lahore after the partition.

Shehbaz did his BA from Government College University, Lahore and joined his father's steel company Ittefaq Group. He was also chosen to lead the Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry in 1985. He had to leave Pakistan and live in exile in Saudi Arabia for eight years after the 1999 coup led by General Pervez Musharraf. He again became the Chief Minister of Punjab after PML-N won the 2008 elections.

Shehbaz continued as CM in the second term as well until 2018 when his party faced a defeat after which he was nominated as the leader of the opposition. In 2019, the National Accountability Bureau seized several properties of Shehbaz and his son, Hamza, as a case of money laundering was lodged against them. Shehbaz was arrested and jailed from September 2020 till April 2021 when he was finally given bail by the Lahore High Court.