12.4.09

Lone leaps into poll fray


Close confidante of moderate Hurriyat faction chief Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and a champion of Kashmir poll boycotts, Sajjad Lone on Saturday became the first separatist to announce he would contest Lok Sabha elections. The 42-yearold UK-educated Lone said he would file his papers from the north Kashmir constituency of Baramulla. Breaking ranks with the Hurriyat was a result of the joyous embrace of democracy that Kashmiris displayed during the assembly polls last year, posting a record turnout of 68%. ‘‘The turnout prompted me to change the strategy but not the ideology,’’ said Lone, who had denounced his sister Shabnam Lone’s decision to contest assembly polls as a ‘‘great betrayal to the legacy of his father and Shaheed-e-Hurriyat’’. Shabnam had openly defied her brother.‘‘It’s possible that Sajjad enjoys tactical support of the moderate Hurriyat,’’ a source said. Sajjad, who hadn’t formally joined Hurriyat, heads a breakaway faction of the People’s Conference. Bilal Lone, his brother, is part of Hurriyat. Pandering to the separatist sentiment, Sajjad asked the media not portray his plunge as a victory for Indian democracy. ‘‘I’ll be pained to take oath under Indian constitution.’’ He said he wasn’t seeking power but trying to ‘‘reorient the struggle from streets to the institutions’’. But he clearly indicated separatists were barking up the wrong tree. ‘‘Their strategies have failed.’’ urriyat (Mirwaiz) leader Maulvi Abass Ansari said Sajjad’s decision to fight the polls was a personal one. ‘‘We can’t dictate terms to him.’’ The Mirwaiz wasn’t available for comment. The debate over Sajjad’s plunge into electoral politics has seesawed ever since his father and Hurriyat leader Abdul Gani Lone was killed while he was apparently thinking of taking the same path in 2002. Like father, he hates jihadis ... Sajjad Lone comes across as a Kashmiri politician who seldom felt at home with the separatist conglomerate Hurriyat Conference that he had to associate himself with since his father Abdul Gani Lone’s assassination in 2002. The 42-year-old is married to Asma Khan, daughter of Amanullah Khan, one of the founders of JKLF. His wife and two children are still in Pakistan as the government has refused them visas. Sajjad’s Peoples Conference holds sway in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district, where his father, a legislator who turned into a champion of azadi, enjoyed immense public support. Sajjad, like his father, hates jihadis.

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