In 1967, he joined hands with the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the formation of the Pakistan Peoples Party. He was a founding member of the party's central executive committee and later a member of the first ever PPP cabinet, initially as Health Minister and then Chairman of the Land Reforms Commission. His efforts at land reforms were said to have made him unpopular with many including some of his own land-owning party colleagues because he confiscated, as "Federal Land Reforms Commission" chairman, thousands of acres of land of big landowners of Pakistan regardless of what political party they belonged to. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto himself was a big landowner in Sindh. Eventually, the land reforms saw only a half-hearted implementation by the Bhutto administration. Besides Bhutto, Pakistan has been a land of too many influential feudal lords and stiff resistance was expected from them anyway to any socialist-type land reforms.