NINE months after taking the oath as the ninth prime minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), Raja Farooq Haider was removed through a no-trust motion in the legislative assembly.

Exactly six years later, he is set to make his way back as prime minister of AJK, after nomination from Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday.

Born in 1955 into a political family ofMuzaffarabad, Mr Haider is credited by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz central leadership for steadfastly organising the party in AJK over the last six years and eventually leading the party to its landmark victory in last week`s general elections.

Regarded as an outspoken leader, Mr Haider received his education in Muzaffarabad and Abbottabad. He went on to graduate from the prestigious Government College Lahore.

His father, the late Raja Mohammad Haider Khan, quit a government job to struggle against the despotic Dogra rule, and was a key Muslim Conference (MC) leader, a party he led twice in 1960 and 1963. His mother, the late Saeeda Khanum, was from Srinagar and had the distinction of being the first female member of the AJK Legislative Assembly.

His paternal uncle Raja Mohammad Latif Khan was elected an MLA in 1970, while his sister, Naureen Haider, also remained an MLA against a reserved seat from 1991 to 1996.

Mr Haider contested and won the AJK assembly elections for the first time in 1985, following which he held the office of parliamentary secretary but was elevated to the cabinet as senior member in 1988.

In 1991, he won in the general elections for the second time and held a ministerial position until 1996. He lost the 2001 elections, but was appointed by then prime minister Sardar Sikandar Hayat as chairman of the prime minister`s Implementation Commission and later as special adviser.

He lost the 2006 elections but after the death of his electoral rival, Sahibzada Ishaq Zafar, the same year, he won the by-election. He did not, however, accept any position under AJK prime minister Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan for being a steady critic of his policies. Differences with Mr Khan forced him to raise a forward block in the MC, which later overthrew the former with help from the Pakistan Peoples Party and installed Sardar Yaqoob Khan as the premier in January 2009.

In October, divided MC factions reunited and under an agreement Mr Haider was installed as the ninth prime minister.

However, the arrangement did not work out and Mr Khan managed to oust him after seeking help from the PPP.

Following the widening gulf between the two MC factions, Mr Haider convinced Mr Sharif to launch the PML-N in AJK in Dec 2010.

Mr Haider was appointed PML-N AJK chapter`s chief organiser on Dec 26, 2010, and under his stewardship the party went into the 2011 polls and secured 10 direct seats, emerging as the major opposition party. In 2011, Mr Haider contested from two constituencies and returned from both. He vacated his Muzaffarabad city seat, which was won by the PML-N nominee against the joint PPP-MC candidate. Mr Haider, who remained leader of the opposition in the outgoing assembly, was elected unopposed as PML-N regional president on April 5, 2012.

However, he contested in the July 21 polls from his ancestral constituency and won by a wide margin. After the party`s landslide victory, PML-N workers were expecting his nomination as leader of the house but were not certain due to rumours that it was not meant to be. However, all rumours were put to rest when Mr Sharif announced Mr Haider was AJK`s prime minister-in-waiting.