Political Career
Shah entered politics by getting elected the chairman of Khairpur’s district council under Field Marshal Ayub Khan’s system of Basic Democracy in the 1960s. After that, there was no turning back. His close association with Bhutto led to his joining Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s PPP shortly after PPP’s creation in 1967.
He contested general elections of 1970 with a PPP-ticket from Khairpur Mirs and defeated his opponents, Syed Mohammad Baqir Shah (provincial president of National Awami Party (Wali)) and Syed Ghous Ali Shah. Recognizing young Shah’s capabilities, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto appointed Qaim Ali Shah to his small cabinet by making Shah the Federal Minister for Industries and Kashmir Affairs.
After General Zia-ul-Haq’s coup d’état in July 1977, Shah was arrested along with Bhutto and other cabinet ministers. Unlike other PPP bigwigs such as Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, Ghulam Mustafa Khar, Makhdoom Khaliq-uz-Zaman, Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani, who either left the party or became inactive, Qaim Ali Shah remained loyal to the party. During the eleven years of Gen. Zia-ul-Haq’s rule, Shah, and members of his family suffered imprisonment, torture, virtual poverty (as accounts and lands were seized), and constant fear. Most notably, Shah’s politically active nephew, Syed Parvez Ali Shah Jillani attained ‘Prisoner Of Conscience’ status in Amnesty International’s 1985 report for enduring six years of torture in General Zia’s torture cells. Benazir Bhutto’s autobiography, Daughter of the East, records Parvez’s ordeal in greater detail.
With General Zia’s death and Benazir Bhutto’s return to the country, Shah was appointed the president of PPP-Sindh in recognition of his services to the Movement for Restoration of Democracy (MRD) and PPP. His landslide victory in the 1988 elections from his constituency, Khairpur Mirs, paved way for his appointment as the 17th Chief Minister of Sindh on December 2, 1988.
Subsequently, Shah was elected as a Member of Provincial Assembly (MPA), Sindh, in 1990, 1993, 2002 and 2008. He lost the only election of his career in 1997 when the PPP was nearly routed from parliament. Later, he made a bid for a senate seat, and won his first and only senate term in late 1997.
For winning seven out of eight general elections he contested, becoming a MPA six times, and Member of National Assembly (MNA) and senator once, Shah is an exception to the norm in Pakistani politics.
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