Malik Meraj Khalid (1916 - June 13, 2003) the caretaker Prime Minister of Pakistan from November 1996 till February 1997 was born in a small village near Lahore. A lawyer by profession he began his practice in 1948. For the first time he was elected to the Provincial Assembly of West Pakistan in 1965. He joined the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) soon after its inception in 1968 and was appointed President of Lahore chapter. It was on the PPP ticket that he was successfully re-elected to the National Assembly in 1970.
Malik Meraj Khalid, famous for his gentleness and honesty was a favorite of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the flamboyant Primer of Pakistan during 1970s. It was him who played a major role in the political career of Meraj Khalid by first appointing him as his Minister for Food and Agriculture and Under-Developed Areas in December 1971. Afterwards he was he was appointed Chief of the Party's Parliamentary Affairs in November 1972, and Minister of Social Welfare, Local Government and Rural Development in 1975. Finally he was elected Speaker of the National Assembly.
After the execution of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in April 1979, he was nominated member of the PPP's Central Committee but he eventually resigned from this position in January 1988. After once more successfully returning to the National Assembly in 1988, he was once again appointed as Speaker of the National Assembly in 1988. However, he lost the subsequent elections in 1993, and remained aloof from politics for sometime. During this period of solitude he kept on serving as the Rector of International Islamic University but eventually he was dragged out of this solitude and was asked by the then President of Pakistan Sardar Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari in November 1996 to officiate the interim government before new elections.
As caretaker prime minister, Malik Meraj Khalid set a new precedent of austerity. On most occasions, he travelled without protocol. He would often be seen strolling on the Mall in Lahore.
