J&K Poll Players | The Lone Factor

Sajjad Lone, the former separatist tuned mainstream politician, will be trying his luck in the Assembly polls after losing in the General Elections

Outlook Web Desk

Updated on: 17 September 2024 7:47 am

Sajjad Lone

Sajjad Lone, the Chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir People’s Conference, is one of the first separatist leaders who came out of the fold and into mainstream politics in 2004. He is a former Member of the Legislative Assembly from the Handwara constituency in Kashmir.

Born in 1966, Lone is the youngest son of Kashmiri separatist leader Abdul Ghani Lone, founder of the People’s Conference and a senior leader in the all-party Hurriyat Conference. He attended school in Kashmir, and went on to study at Cardiff University, Wales, United Kingdom. He was a part of the Hurriyat Conference till 2002, when his father was assassinated. He took up the leadership of the J&K People's Conference after his father's death and moved away from separatism.

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In 2008, he boycotted the Assembly elections in protest over the Amarnath land transfer controversy, which led to mass protests in Jammu and Kashmir, during which police opened fire on a crowd, killing six and injuring 100 people. However, in the 2009 general elections, he stood as an independent candidate from the Baramulla Lok Sabha constituency and lost. In 2014, he stood from North Kashmir’s Handwara Assembly constituency, and won by over 5,000 votes. Lone had made news when he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi before the elections and heaped praise on him. Lone's was one of the two seats won by the People's Conference in the 2014 Assembly polls, and he became a Minister in the PDP-BJP coalition government that was formed.

In 2018, Lone tried to form Jammu and Kashmir’s government after BJP withdrew its support for the PDP and dissolved the coalition government that was in power. Lone’s claim was negated by then-Governor S P Malik, who dissolved the state Assembly before the former Hurriyat member could prove that he had the required numbers.

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Lone is a staunch supporter of J&K’s special status, and vocal critic of the abrogation of Article 370. Ahead of revoking J&K’s special status, Centre arrested Lone on August 5, 2019, and only released him a year later in July 2020.

Considered a key player in Kashmir politics, the 58-year-old Lone stood against National Conference leader and former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in the Baramulla Lok Sabha seat that went to the polls on May 20 during the 2024 General Elections. Both Lone and Abdullah were defeated by Awami Ittehad Party's Engineer Rashid.

On September 12, he filed papers to contest Assembly polls from two seats, Handwara and Kupwara.

According to the affidavit he’s filed with the EC, Lone has a total declared assets of Rs 20.6 crore, including Rs 1.4 crore in movable assets and Rs 19.2 crore in immovable assets. His total declared income is Rs 81.8 lakh, all of which is “self-income.” The JKPC candidate, in the election affidavit filed, mentioned that there were no criminal cases registered against him.