LAHORE : Nawaz Sharif's political stalwart Nehal Hashmi is one of the three political figures of PMLN who have served as Parliamentarian from a different province before taking oath as the governor of another province.
Figures like Mian Gul Aurangzeb, ex-MNA from Swat and last Crown prince of Swat Valley, got elected MNA in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on PMLN ticket and became Governor of Balochistan in later years, in the tenure of PMLN. He has also served as the KP Governor. Besides, former Secretary General of PMLN Iqbal Zafar Jhagra was made Senator from Islamabad, which was not his native province or territory. Later, he was also made KP Governor.
Owais Ghani held the record of serving as the governor of two provinces and in the era of Pervez Musharraf he was made Governor of Balochistan from 2003 to 2008 while he had also served in the caretaker cabinet of Musharraf before it. Ghani also served as KP Governor from 2008 to 2011. Nehal Hashmi is, however, amongst those figures of PMLN who served as Parliamentarian from a different province and became Governor of a different province. 11 years ago, in 2015, Hashmi, became Senator on a Punjab seat as PMLN did not have enough numbers to get its Senator elected from Sindh, a poll in which provincial assemblies are also the part of the electoral college.
Hashmi, who has now more than two and a half decades’ affiliation with PMLN was fielded from a general seat of Senate in Punjab along with Mushahid Ullah and Salim Zia, two other stalwarts of PMLN who have been active in Karachi politics. Before that, Nehal contested the 2013 general elections on PMLN ticket for the National Assembly seat NA-251 where MQM's Ali Raza Abidi was winner. In that contest, Nehal Hashmi got over 13,000 votes and was even ahead of the PPP candidate. As the PMLN stalwart, he always remained at forefront in the Altaf Hussein-led MQM dominated city of Karachi. Nehal Hashmi got elected as Senator but he also had to face disqualification for his remarks against judiciary of that time. Now, in March 2026, once again, fortune favoured him and he was nominated by his party high command to take oath as the governor of the province. Thus, setting up a precedent of first representing Punjab in the Parliament and then serving as the Constitutional head of Sindh.
