Farrukh Habib: Biography, Age, Political Career, Why He Left the PTI and Where He Is Now (2026)

Who is Farrukh Habib?

Here is the short version. For about five years, Farrukh Habib was one of the faces you were most likely to see defending Imran Khan on television.

He was young, quick and always on message. He had come up through the party’s student wing and had no family dynasty behind him. To the PTI’s supporters he was proof that an ordinary worker could rise.

Then came 9 May 2023. Five months later he sat at a table in Lahore, beside leaders of a rival party, and said he was leaving. His story since then is mostly silence.

Farrukh Habib’s career shows both sides of the PTI’s story: how fast the party could lift a young worker up, and how quickly that worker’s world could fall apart after May 2023.

Early life and home city

He was born on 13 August 1980, according to his public biography, and belongs to Faisalabad.

Faisalabad is Pakistan’s third-largest city and the centre of its textile industry. It has no feudal lords in the old sense. Its politics is run by traders, mill owners and biradari, or clan, networks. For decades it was a stronghold of the PML-N.

No reliable source read for this article gives his schooling or degrees, so we leave them out.

The student leader

He entered politics through the Insaf Student Federation, the PTI’s student wing, and became one of its national leaders.

Student wings matter in Pakistani parties. They supply the people who put up banners, fill buses for rallies and run social media. A few of their leaders are rewarded with party tickets. He was one of them.

This background set him apart inside the PTI. In 2018 the party gave many of its tickets to “electables”, established politicians who had switched from other parties. He belonged to the other camp: workers who had been with Imran Khan since the lean years.

How does a worker get a party ticket?

A “ticket” is a party’s official nomination for a seat. It carries the party’s election symbol, which matters greatly where many voters cannot read a ballot paper.

Parties in Pakistan choose candidates in a few ways.

• The electable. A local figure with money and a personal vote is given the ticket because he can win with it.
• The loyal worker. Someone who has served the party for years is rewarded, even if he is not rich.
• The leader’s choice. Sometimes the party head simply picks a person he trusts.

In strong seats parties usually prefer electables. Workers tend to get tickets in seats the party expects to lose. That is what happened to him in 2013: he was given a hard seat against a strong opponent. His reward came five years later, when the same seat turned winnable.

2013: a heavy defeat

In 2013 he stood for the National Assembly in NA-108 Faisalabad. His opponent was Abid Sher Ali of the PML-N, a member of one of the city’s best-known political families.

He lost by more than 67,000 votes.

2018: the upset

Five years later he stood again in the same seat against the same man. This time he won, by a narrow margin.

It was one of the notable upsets of that election. The PTI took most of Faisalabad’s seats in 2018, breaking the PML-N’s long hold on the city.

In government, 2018 to 2022

Parliamentary Secretary for Railways

On 27 September 2018 he was made Parliamentary Secretary for Railways.

Minister of State for Information

On 28 April 2021 he was promoted to Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting. He worked under the federal minister and, in practice, became one of the government’s main spokesmen.

It suited him. He appeared on talk shows most nights and held frequent press conferences attacking the opposition. He stayed in the post until the government was voted out in April 2022.

What does a government spokesman do?

The information ministry is the government’s mouthpiece. It runs the state broadcaster and the official news agency, places government advertisements in newspapers and deals with the media regulator.

Its ministers have a simple daily task: defend the government and attack its opponents, on camera, every evening. The job needs a quick tongue and a thick skin. It also makes enemies. A spokesman says in public the harsh things that his leader prefers not to say himself, and those words are remembered when power changes hands.

He was good at the job, and it made him one of the best-known faces of the government.

Out of the assembly

After Imran Khan’s removal, the PTI’s members resigned from the National Assembly together. The Speaker accepted the resignations of a first small group in July 2022. His was among them. From that point he no longer held a seat.

2023: inquiries, 9 May and a disappearance

The inquiries

In 2023 the Federal Investigation Agency and Punjab’s anti-corruption department opened inquiries concerning him. According to his public biography, they involved a petrol pump on railway land and matters at two public bodies in Faisalabad.

These were allegations. No charge sheet, trial or verdict was found for this article, and nothing here should be read as a finding against him.

9 May

On 9 May 2023 Imran Khan was arrested in Islamabad. Protests spread across the country, and military buildings were attacked in several cities, including Lahore and Faisalabad.

The state’s response was severe. Thousands of PTI workers were arrested. Leaders were charged under anti-terrorism laws. He went out of public view, issuing statements from unknown places.

Gwadar

On 28 September 2023 he was taken into custody in Gwadar, on the coast of Balochistan, along with several other people.

What happened next is disputed.

For more than two weeks his family and his party said they did not know where he was.

What is a recovery petition?

When a person is taken away and the family does not know where he is, the law gives them a remedy. They can ask a High Court to order the authorities to produce him. Lawyers call this a habeas corpus petition, from the Latin for “you shall have the body”. In Pakistan it is often called a recovery petition.

The court calls on the police and other agencies to say whether they hold the person and under what law. If no lawful reason is shown, the court orders his release. If a case is registered against him, he must be brought before a magistrate within twenty-four hours.

The remedy is old and simple. Its weakness is also simple. If every agency tells the court that it does not have the person, the court has little to work with.

16 October 2023: the press conference

He reappeared on 16 October 2023 at the head office of the Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party in Lahore. Two of that party’s leaders sat beside him.

According to press reports, he said:

• that he was leaving the PTI and joining the IPP;
• that what happened on 9 May was wrong;
• that Imran Khan was responsible for those events;
• that the vote of no confidence of April 2022 had been constitutional.

On the same day the Lahore High Court had been hearing the petition for his recovery.

How the PTI responded

The PTI said it was glad he had been “recovered”. It said the press conference was part of a process meant to push the party out of politics. Other PTI leaders said people were being forced to leave.

He himself said the decision was his own, made after consulting friends.

What is the IPP?

The Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party was launched in June 2023, a month after 9 May. Its founder was Jahangir Tareen, a wealthy businessman who had once been Imran Khan’s closest ally and financier. Most of its first members were people leaving the PTI.

Its critics called it a “king’s party”, a group put together with the blessing of the establishment to absorb defectors. Its leaders said they wanted stability and an end to confrontation.

The voters were not persuaded. In the election of February 2024 the party won only a handful of seats, and those with the help of seat adjustments with the PML-N. Tareen lost his own contests and left politics. The party’s leadership passed to Abdul Aleem Khan, and it joined the federal coalition as a minor partner.

In the IPP

Four days after his press conference, on 20 October 2023, the IPP gave him a party post for the Faisalabad division. A later report says he became the party’s president for Faisalabad at the end of February 2024.

Why he did not contest in 2024

He filed nomination papers for seats in Faisalabad for the election of February 2024. In January 2024 he withdrew them. His lawyer was reported as saying the reason was personal, not political.

No fuller explanation was found. It is fair to note the position he was in. In his own city, the voters who had elected him in 2018 were PTI voters. Standing against the PTI’s candidate, under another party’s flag, would have been very hard.

One case closed

His public biography records that he was discharged in a case about damage at a court complex. That means the court let him go at an early stage, before any trial.

Since 2024

Here we must be frank. No report about him dated 2025 or 2026 was found for this article.

That may mean he has stepped back from public life. It may mean only that our search did not find it. We do not know, and we will not guess. An editor should search again before this article is published.

What supporters and critics say

Those who think well of him remember a hard-working spokesman who rose without family money or a famous name. Some argue that what he said in October 2023 should be read in the light of how he came to say it.

His critics come from two sides. Opponents of the PTI recall the sharp language he used against them as a minister and point to the inquiries of 2023. Many PTI supporters, on the other hand, see him as someone who abandoned the party and blamed its leader when things became hard, while others stayed in jail.

Each view has merit. Nobody outside knows what choices were really open to him in those weeks. What can be said is that his political base was the PTI’s vote in Faisalabad, and that leaving the party cost him that base.

Words used in this article

Timeline: Farrukh Habib at a glance

Why his story matters

• It shows how parties treat their workers. He rose from the student wing to a ministry in less than ten years, which is rare in Pakistan’s family-run parties.
• It shows what happened to the PTI after 9 May. His press conference was one of dozens. Together they form one of the most argued-over episodes in recent politics.
• It shows where votes really sit. In 2018 he beat a famous local name. In 2024 he could not even stand. The vote had belonged to the party all along.

To understand the vote that removed the government he served in, read our explainer on the vote of no confidence and our plain-English guide to Pakistan’s politics.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• Wikipedia, “Farrukh Habib” — biography as last edited on 3 August 2026.
• Dawn, report on Farrukh Habib quitting the PTI — 16 October 2023.
• The Friday Times, “‘Whatever happened on May 9 was wrong,’ says Farrukh Habib as he quits PTI” — 16 October 2023.
• Aaj English, “Farrukh Habib quits PTI to join Istehkam-i-Pakistan Party”
• ARY News, “Farrukh Habib likely to get key position in IPP”
• Wikipedia, “Muhammad Waris Aziz” — for the IPP’s Faisalabad post in February 2024.