Islamabad: Pakistan’s new President Dr Arif Alvi is a man of many parts. He is a scholar, a dentist, a politician and an author — he authored the constitution of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

He is an elected Member of the National Assembly from Karachi. In July 2018 elections, he won from NA-247 on his party ticket. In 2013, too, he won a seat from NA-250 and was appointed President of PTI Sindh.

Alvi is among the founding members of the PTI. Before serving as president of PTI Sindh, he worked as secretary general of the party from 2006 to 2013.

Alvi has a distinguished academic career in dentistry. After doing his BDS from De’Montmorency College of Dentistry Lahore, in the late 1960s, Alvi did his Masters degree in Prosthodontics from the University of Michigan. He has also earned a Masters in Orthodontics from the University of the Pacific and served as a President of Asia Pacific Dental Federation.

Alvi married Samina Alvi and they have four children — all married and settled down with their families abroad.

It was during Ayub Khan’s military regime in the late 1960s that Alvi played an active role in student politics and led and participated in many a rally against the dictator of the day.

At that time, he was president of the students union at De’Montmorency College of Dentistry in Lahore, the acclaimed institution of the provincial capital.

During that period of anti-Ayub rallies, he was hit with a bullet and still carries that ‘medal’ embedded in his right arm as a souvenir of democracy.

However, the real change took place in his political profile when he joined and co-founded PTI back in 1996 and remained a loyal worker of Chairman Imran Khan since then. He also contested 1997 and 2002 polls for a seat in Sindh Assembly, however, he could not succeed.

He was promoted to the post of vice-president in 2001, following which he became the party’s secretary general in 2006, a post he worked for till 2013.

In general election of July 25 2018, he secured 91,020 votes against Syed Zaman Ali Jaffrey of the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), who could bag 24,680 votes.