Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Ali Amin Gandapur was elected Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s chief minister on Friday after securing 90 votes in the House of 106 members.

Unlike most of the PTI-backed independent lawmakers, the newly-elected chief minister of KP decided against joining the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) as he submitted papers for the provincial president of the PTI in the intraparty election.

Born to a prominent family in 1978 with a political background in Dera Ismail Khan, Gandapur began his political career with Imran Khan’s PTI in 2007.

His father Major Aminullah Gandapur (Retd) served as a caretaker cabinet member during the tenure of former president General Pervez Musharraf.

Read: Imran Khan nominates Ali Amin Gandapur for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa CM

Gandapur received his early education in his hometown and he matriculated from Police Public School in Peshawar. He then went on to graduate from the National College of Arts, Lahore in fashion design.

During the first tenure of the PTI in KP, he was the Provincial Minister of KP for Revenue and Estate in the then-CM Pervez Khattak’s cabinet.

In the 2018 general election, Gandapur defeated JUI-F Chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman on the NA-38 seat and was given the portfolio of Federal Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan on October 5, 2018.

During his tenure in the ministry, he began work to make Gilgit-Baltistan a province.

Between 2022 and 2023, Gandapur served as the provincial general secretary of the PTI and kept the party alive and active as PTI faced tough times following the May 9 riots.

The KP’s newly-elected CM contested on the National Assembly’s NA-44 constituency and defeated JUI- F chief while he was also declared the winner on PK-113.