the other being Lala Harikishan Lal, and served as the minister for education, health, and local government. During this time he spearheaded a rural bloc of Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs, which in 1923 formally organised itself into the Unionist Party and intended to be a mass organization of Punjab's peasant proprietors. Whilst the party succeeded in gaining support from only the rural Hindu and Sikhs, it also successfully attracted the support of the bulk of urban Muslims. In 1923, Husain extended separate electorates to local bodies and educational institutions seeking to raise Muslim representation to the level of the Muslim proportion of the population, which in turn created tensions between Muslim and Hindu. In his role as education minister he is credited with having been the main engineer of the scheme to establish employment quotas for Muslims in the Indian civil service. In January 1924, he was re-elected to the Council and remained as a minister until January 1926 when he left the Punjab Assembly upon being appointed Revenue Member. Chhotu Ram, a Hindu Jat, was named as his successor as president of the Unionist party He was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire in 1926. In 1930, he was promoted to the Viceroy's Executive Council in Delhi where he remained until 1935. He became the most important councilor of the Viceroy and used his position to challenge Muhammad Ali Jinnah's claims that he alone represented the interests of the Muslims. He played an important part in organizing the Round Table Conferences and influencing the views of the present Muslim delegates. The Punjabi view of the "Muslim interest" formulated by Husain was a success. The implementation of the Communal Award and Government of India Act 1935, allowed the majority Muslims in Punjab and Bengal to retain their separate electorates yet also granted them more seats than any other community in their respective assemblies. Whilst this allowed Muslim politicians in Punjab to increase their autonomy it brought them into conflict with Muslims in Hindu majority provinces, who would now look to Jinnah and the Muslim League for support. In 1932, he led the Indian delegation to the Indo-South African Conference and was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Star of India in 1932. On returning to Lahore from Delhi in 1935, Husain sought to prepare the Unionist Party for the forthcoming provincial elections.